Deep Impact successfully launched yesterday, and is en route to a great coming together with a comet in six months’ time.
Category: Blog
Perfecting the pineapple
The pineapple has always been one of my favorite fruits. Apparently I’m not alone: a recent e-mail from a listener to the CBC Radio version of this column noted, “There is a new pineapple on the market that is very sweet, has extra vitamin C, (is) much less acidic and is ready to eat when …
Last week, big explosion, this week, big stars!
Astronomers have identified what may be the three biggest stars ever spotted–big enough that, if they were located where the sun is, their outer layers would extend to somewhere between Jupiter and Saturn.
A personal earthquake detector
Tsunamis are not a natural hazard we have to worry about here in extremely landlocked Saskatchewan (if a wave makes it this far, it’s pretty much goodbye humanity, I’d have to think) but should they or volcanic eruptions be something that keeps you up nights, you might want to investigate this inexpensive personal earthquake detector.
Boom!
It’s the most powerful eruption in the universe (that we’ve observed, anyway)–and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory has taken its picture.
A wireless blog
Also a bit of a writing diary. I reached “The End” of Excalibur Reforged again yesterday, and today I’ve been doing some final touching up and giving some though to the story arc for the rest of the putative series of books. I’m uncertain how detailed I need to make the outlines for future books, …
Frankenstein’s Earthsea
Ursula K. LeGuin writes more about the TV adapation of Earthsea. She was, um, unimpressed–to put it mildly.
Margaret Atwood invents long-distance autographing machine
I just hope someday my books are in enough demand that I’ll have occasion to use something like this. It sounds like something out of science fiction–which, of course, Margaret Atwood does not write.
Cat copies
I had a great cat growing up. I got Tiger (original name, eh?) when he was a kitten, and he lived to be almost 18 (by which time I had long since left home and my parents were wondering why they were still looking after my cat). Tiger was a wonderful pet–gentle, affectionate, and yet …
First look at Lost in Translation cover art
Five Star has published its winter catalogue online, which has given me my first look at the cover art for my upcoming novel Lost in Translation (due out in late February). The artist is Alan M. Clark. UPDATE, March 1: Oops. Turns out the cover artist is actually Jill Bauman. It’s not quite what I …
Iapetus up close
We’re starting to see the first close-up views of Saturn’s moon Iapetus from Cassini’s current flyby. Cool! Speaking of cool, it’s -31 C here at the moment, after a weekend that saw us get 30 cm of snow or so. Not surprisingly, there’s a wind-chill warning in effect–wind chill will probably reach -45 C (that’s …
Frank Kelly Freas (1922-2005)
Frank Kelly Freas has passed away. He was the artist guest of honor at the first SF convention I ever went to (RocKon, in Little Rock, ca. 1979) and I still have an autographed poster of one of his paintings somewhere. Sad news.
My latest live walk and vlog
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