Strange Horizons’s James Schellenberg asked several SF writers what they listen to while writing, and if music ever inspires them to write. Nobody asked me, oddly enough–but then, the answer would be I really don’t like having music playing while I’m writing–about the only time I want music in the background is when I’m driving …
Category: Blog
World time zone map
Need to call, say, Belarus and uncertain what time it is there? Wonder no longer.
Dead pianists to perform
And, no, this isn’t a religious post either–they haven’t been resurrected. However, low-tech, scratchy recordings by dead piano greats Glenn Gould (who died in 1982) and Alfred Cortot (who died in 1982) will take on new life in a concert in Raleigh, North Carolina next month, when a Disklavier Pro piano will play MIDI files …
Good news from Genesis
Uh, no, this isn’t a religious post. Remember Genesis, the poor old solar wind-collecting spacecraft that fell out of the sky when its parachute didn’t open? Turns out some of the key collectors, at least, are in excellent shape.
Will space soon be within reach of many more of us?
Burt Rutan says so. I hope he’s right. I’m not getting any younger, you know. But, no, I’m not one of the 29,000 people who have already expressed interest in flying Virgin Galactic’s version of SpaceShipOne into sub-orbital space–not at $200,000 U.S. a ticket, I’m not.
Qatar to Use Robots as Camel Riders…
…is, of course, my Science Fiction Headline of the Day.
World’s largest iceberg hits ice tongue
The world’s largest iceberg has finally bumped into an Antarctic ice tongue, breaking off a five-kilometre-long section. This had been mooted as “the collision of the century,” but the vagaries of icebergs, currents and wind being what they are, it ended up being more of a “bump in the night”–although any bump that breaks off …
Gene therapy for hemophilia
This is exciting research–if I ever get to update the children’s book I wrote on hemophilia, I may have some good news to add to it.
Revelatory rubbish
A few weeks ago I wrote about the ancient, scorched papyri buried at Herculaneum by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D., that, although rediscovered in 1752, have just now become legible thanks to new technology. That same technology is now uncovering astonishing treasures in another collection of papyri–not, this time, from a great …
Monitoring the Earth
“Imagine the planet wired for a nearly continuous readout on its vital signs, shared by all.” Sounds like a good idea to me. Of course, since it’s an idea originating with the U.S. government, I’m probably playing into the nefarious hands of the all-powerful Darth Rove by giving it a positive mention. But if so, …
The "classical holy grail"
Whether or not a second library turns up at Herculaneum, we can already look forward to an explosion of previously unknown classical works, thanks to highy-tech methods being used to unlock the secrets of papyrus scraps recoered from an ancient rubbish dump in central Egypt.
Rogue wave damages cruise ship
A seven-story rogue wave smashed into a cruise ship over the weekend, slightly injuring four passengers, smashing two windows, flooding 62 cabins and damaging the the hull. Last year I wrote this column about rogue waves.
My latest live walk and vlog
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