Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 226 entries, all of them here in full.
June 7, 2012 · 576 words
Fahrenheit Zero
I found a picture of Ray Bradbury as he looked before he became the affable, bespectacled, white-haired figure we’ve seen over the last couple decades. This is a lot closer to how he looked when he wrote the stories and novels for which he’ll most likely be remembered. He looks serious, driven. He looks like […]
Read entry →June 6, 2012 · 358 words
Teh Science
Random news from the World O’ Science, all of which came in on the same day. Via friend of the blog Density Duck, the news that the National Reconnaissance Office, which is so hyper-secret that its very existence was kept from the public for forty-odd years, has gifted NASA with a couple of space telescopes, […]
Read entry →June 6, 2012 · 856 words
Venus/Melancholia
I spent much of the afternoon and early evening shuttling in and out of the house watching the Transit of Venus. Through the telescope the sun seemed quiescent and slightly blotchy, and then a black disk began to move across it, as if our star had donned a beauty patch. Venus was larger than […]
Read entry →June 4, 2012 · 122 words
Dead Soldiers
Oh yeah. We had fun. And, if you read the previous post, you know this implies a lot of critique. In addition to all the, um, critique, there was black roux gumbo, Louisiana boudin, slow-braised brisket, Moroccan chicken, linguine in ginger-garlic sauce, leg of lamb stuffed with mint pesto, and other goodies my brain i
Read entry →May 30, 2012 · 186 words
Workshop Drinking Game
I’m up the mountain at the Rio Hondo workshop, hanging out with eleven other talented writers, talking deep into the night, enjoying hot tub parties, critiquing their work, and grooving on the spectacle of the natural world. This also means my posting here might be scant for the rest of the week. We— well actuall
Read entry →May 29, 2012 · 184 words
Flame On
So today we heard about the Flame Virus, now infecting the Middle East and Iran. What this demonstrates is how effective governments can be when they turn to cyberwar. It puts the hack tools used by the likes of Anonymous far, far into the shade. “The complexity and functionality of the newly discovered malicious progr
Read entry →May 27, 2012 · 288 words
The Future On Little Cat Feet
As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I broke a tooth and needed a crown. I’ve had a temporary filling while I’ve been traveling, but yesterday I had the actual procedure. Which led to a number of those science fiction moments in which you suddenly realize that you’re living in the future. I’ve had laser […]
Read entry →May 25, 2012 · 358 words
Dead Trees Strike Back!
Someone pointed me at the online edition of Forbes, which features an article about an independent bookstore that is, contrary to about every other independent bookstore in the country, thriving in the current ebook-saturated environment. Jeff Mayersohn, the new owner of the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge, managed to c
Read entry →May 25, 2012 · 130 words
Guinness Book of Teleportation
I bet you didn’t even know there was a World Teleportation Record. Let alone that it’s just been broken. A group of European scientists have just teleported photons 142 kilometers, between the Canary Islands of Tenerife and La Palma. This breaks a Chinese record of 100 km set just a few weeks ago. This demonstration [&
Read entry →May 24, 2012 · 1,578 words
The S Word
Here we see a view of one of the most famous back porches in America, that of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. I spent a couple days traveling through Virginia before the Nebula Weekend, and one day— while Kathy was visiting a school chum in Charlottesville— I decided to go off in search of history. I started
Read entry →May 23, 2012 · 248 words
Above and Beyond
Here we see astronaut Mike Fincke pointing out some of the features of the moon suit on display at the Air & Space Museum on the Washington Mall. Mike didn’t have to do this. He and I were asked to guide a tour after the Nebula Weekend organizers were unable to find a docent able […]
Read entry →May 21, 2012 · 80 words
Ruling Ring
Behold! A composite photograph of yesterday’s annular eclipse, showing all stages of the event. The reason the light turns amber as the eclipse progresses has nothing to do with the eclipse, and everything to do with the fact that the sun is setting as the event occurs. In fact, the sun was still in partial […]
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