Jlawrence’s Comments (group member since Mar 08, 2010)

Jlawrence’s comments from the The Sword and Laser group.

OK, this back-and-forth prompted me to dig up details from From Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which I just finished recently. Prepare for mega Szilard info-dump.

"Anne wrote: "Szilard wasn't peaceful - he was trying to sell the A-bomb process patents to the UK before trying to sell it in the US."

When living in London in 1934, Szilard offered his patent to UK government because he thought the information dangerous and should be kept secret.

"The British scientific tradition that opposed patents assumed that those who filed them did so for mercenary purposes; Szilard explained his patents to Lindemann to clear his name:

'Early in March last year it seemed advisable to envisage the possibility that ... the release of large amounts of energy ... might be imminent. Realizing to what extent this hinges on the "double neutron," I have applied for a patent along these lines .... Obviously it would be misplaced to consider patents in this field private property and pursue them with a view to commercial exploitation for private purposes. When the time is right some suitable body will have to be created to ensure their proper use.' "
pg. 224.

"When he learned...that he could only keep his patents secret by assigning them to some appropriate agency of the British government, Szilard offered them to the War Office."
pg. 244

The War Office refused, not seeing the patents' importance, but the Admiralty, after Frederick Lindemann intervened on Szilard's behalf, accepted the patent.

The letter Lindemann wrote to the Admiralty mentions, "it might be worth keeping the thing secret as it is not going to cost the Government anything." (pg. 224) This suggests Szilard did not walk away from the interaction a rich patent peddler.

After joining the Manhattan project, Szilard only asked the US for money for his patents after it became clear to him that he and other scientists would have no important say in the decisions of what would be done with that research, and how the information should be shared.

"Previously Szilard had believed he would have equal voice in fission development. Since he had now been compartmentalized, his freedom of speech restrained, his loyalty challenged, he was prepared to actuate the only leverage at hand, his legal right to his inventions....the issue was not compensation; the issue was representation."
pg. 504

From the memorandum Szilard sent the Army:

"It was assumed that the scientists would have adequate representation within this government owned corporation...In the absence of such a government owned corporation in which the scientists can exert their influence on the use of funds, I do not now propose to assign to the government, without equitable compensation, patents covering the basic inventions."

"Leo Szilard was advancing singlehandedly to attempt to extricate the process of decision from governmental restraints and return it to the hands of the atomic scientists."
pg. 504-505

Groves and Szilard had had face-offs before, and these maneuvers inspired an already mistrustful Groves to put Szilard under surveillance.

There were complicated posturing and negotiations, that ended with Szilard's basically trading away his patent rights "for the privilege of working to beat the Germans to the bomb" (ie, not being kicked out of the Manhattan Project by Groves). Instead of any kind of patents payment, the "Army agreed to pay Szilard $15,416.60 to reimburse him for the twenty months he worked unpaid and out-of-pocket at Columbia [his fission research] and for lawyer's fees."

The idea Szilard was warlike is deeply mistaken. Many of the other lead scientists of the Project saw the A-bomb's use as Japanese cities as an necessary evil that would shorten the war, save American lives, even lead to world with no future wars.

But for Szilard on the other hand:

"Szilard had dallied with that rationale in 1944 before concluding in 1945 [before the bomb was dropped] on moral grounds that the bomb should not be used and on political grounds that it should be kept secret."
pg. 697

I have seen and coveted Tom's pulp collection. We should all politely hassle him into bringing them onto the video show show if he forgets. :)

From my collection, I love me some Cordwainer Smith, but I'm not sure why this man-tiger is attacking the oxygen-tank-toting horsie:



Granted, I haven't read this one, and Smith is fond of strangeness, so it's possible that cover is amazingly accurate.

This LEM paperback is sword + laser to the max. Not only is this futuristic knight shooting a robotic dragon with a laser, the steed is apparently a robotic UNICORN hovercraft:



Love this one (both the cover and the book):

I agree, Salvatore won me over with his stories, attitude and humor - I feel compelled to try his books now, which I had no real interest in before. Definitely my favorite of the DragonCon author interviews.

Haha, from a glance at my shelves my favorite odd neighbors are Mr. Bean's Diary next to In Pursuit of VALIS: Selections from the Exegesis of Philip K. Dick.

The internet says, 'Joshua - From the Hebrew name יְהוֹשֻׁעַ (Yehoshu'a) meaning "YAHWEH is salvation" '

As a lapsed Catholic, I seem to have fought against my name's meaning.

I'm join in (as well as read Assassin's Apprentice) - just need to finish The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Neverness first.

309 on my Goodreads to-read virtual shelf.

About 31 physical books in three separate to-read piles in my apt (that's not counting all the shelved unread books).

Probably about 50 (many from project gutenberg) e-book to-reads on Kindle and iBook.

Yeah, it'll take awhile...

Just a note for anyone reading this thread for the first time this week: the first assignment isn't due til next Tue, July 31, so you can still sign up all this week, looks like.

Micah, is the first of the Dracula audio links (the one with Tim Curry et al) in that list the one you're talking about? Think I'll want the e-book version to take notes, highlight, etc, but that audio sounds interesting, too.

Ed wrote: "Dracula's presence in the syllabus seems redundant with Frankenstein there. Frankenstein is widely considered to be one of the first major science novels, so you have to include that, but Dracula seems far less important to the genres of fantasy and science fiction."

I agree. For the class, I would much rather have Dracula traded for an additional post-1950 work.

On the other hand, I've wanted to read Dracula just for itself, and this will force me to, and I'm hoping the instructor will have something interesting to say about why it's included.

The only thing on the syllabus I've read recently is Left Hand of Darkness, the rest I've either never read, or it's been since high school (Frankenstein) or earlier (Alice, Martian Chronicles).

Oh, cool! Joined! :)

Courseusa offers free online classes taught by professors from Princeton, Stanford, Duke, Johns Hopkins and 12 other universities, and next week a Fantasy and Science Fiction course is starting.

This is short notice -- it begins Mon, July 23, but at this moment you can still sign up. Anyone can take it.

It's mostly a look at the roots of current fantasy sci/fi, starting with Grimms folk tales, Alice and Wonderland and Shelly's Frankenstein -- with the entire 1950-present day era represented by only 3 books: Martian Chronicles, Left Hand of Darkness and Doctorow's Little Brother.

But I'm OK with that, as several of the "roots" work being covered are things I've been meaning to read for awhile. And if I have to drop out, it won't hurt my GPA or go on my permanent record.

Tamahome wrote: "Not even vim? :)"

Well, I *could* also break out Apple Writer on my Apple IIc. :)

Alex wrote: "Jlawrence, that's like saying "why have all these folders on your computer? Just put ALL of your files on the desktop.""

No, dumping all your files on the desktop is not organizing them. Scrivener allows you to collect all your story-related files in one place (your Scrivener writing project) *and* allows you organize and categorize them as you like, and it indexes them all. The organization is represented visually within the program.

kvon wrote: "Jlawrence, I've never read Zindell, I would love to know what you think of it. "

Neverness is quite good so far, but I'm only a tenth of the way through. Space pilots are mathematicians who must plot abstract paths through the complex folds of the space-time 'manifold' in real-time to jump from star to star, and the young protagonist pilot foolishly pledges to map part of an enigmatic and vast cosmic brain that uses moon-sized nodes of organic circuitry to do its distributed thinking. The city where the pilots are trained (on an ice-bound planet), the protagonist's friends, the various guilds in the city are well-drawn. And that's just the beginning...

What piece of real-world technology or programming impresses/scares you the most, in terms of it approaching something you depict in Daemon?

(I see people here are guessing your answer will be "Google Glass" ;) ).

Working through The Making of the Atomic Bomb -- fascinating stuff, but sometimes takes me a while to parse the explanations of the various experiments (my issue, not Rhodes - he's a very good, clear writer, it's just the stuff he's trying to describe is, well, rocket science). The book's doing a great job of delving into the scientists' personalities and the social currents of the time, as well as the science.

Just started Neverness. Picked it up after hearing it's strongly The Book of the New Sun influenced. Seems good so far - I can see the Wolfe influence already, but it also seems to be going down its own path, which is good.

Both books are on my to-read-in-2012 list, which I'm behind on. *Less sleeping, more reading*

Tamahome wrote: "How about the first Sandman trade paperback as an S&L pick? (I voted for it. :) )"

I would be so up for that. Although I wasn't completely won over until The Doll's House -- the first paperback is more setting everything up. Maybe the pick could be both Preludes & Nocturnes & The Doll's House, since combined they'd still both be quicker reads than any other S&L pick.

Don't know if T&V want to stretch into graphic novel territory, but that'd be the series to do it with.

Ah, I've been meaning to re-read the original series - some I read with such gaps of time between them that I think I missed a lot of the interconnections. This will be a good reason to!

Agree with Tassie - it's simply one of the best series I've ever read, of any genre.

OK, finished the last bit of the book yesterday, and my other statements still hold, but I did see more Jayne-ness in Amos, especially in that last table conversation with Miller (view spoiler)[after Miller shot Dresden (hide spoiler)].

But I don't know if I would have thought that if I hadn't read this thread. I even started hearing Amos speak in Adam Baldwin's voice. O the power of the S&L threads.