Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 3,174 entries, all of them here in full.
October 18, 2009 · 287 words
This Just In: Solar System Tied Up With Ribbon!
Y’know, if you were watching Trek, and Mr. Spock turned to the captain and said, “There’s a ribbon of mysterious energy surrounding the solar system,” you’d just groan and mutter something about the series’ cheezy made-up science. Except it turns out there really is a ribbon of mysterious energy surrounding the solar s
Read entry →October 16, 2009 · 1,315 words
Re View
I revisited my teen years recently by viewing Ken Russell’s Women in Love (1969) and Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970). In my youth I saw both of these movies multiple times, which might just possibly have to do with the fact that both these films have a lot to do with sex. Both these films […]
Read entry →October 14, 2009 · 259 words
Marketing for Publishers
It’s marketing for publishers in the age of cutbacks. [Thanks to Janice Gelb] Let me introduce myself. My name is Gineen Klein, and I’ve been brought on as an intern to replace the promotion department here at Propensity Books. First, let me say that I absolutely love “Clancy the Doofus Beagle: A Love Story” and [&hell
Read entry →October 13, 2009 · 233 words
Space Fab
So here’s the plan. NASA sends an “electron beam freeform fabrication” unit up onto the Space Station. Then, when the aging station needs a part, the fab just . . . prints it.While the EBF3 equipment tested on the ground is fairly large and heavy, a smaller version was created and successfully test flown on […]
Read entry →October 13, 2009 · 671 words
Hardening of the Arteries
The National Security Agency seems to have won its turf war with the Department of Homeland Security over control of the nation’s cyber security efforts. Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander is the director of the National Security Agency, the largest intelligence agency in the government, and with little public fanfare he has
Read entry →October 13, 2009 · 597 words
The Prize
It’s probably a little late to chime in on the Nobel Prize thing, but what the hell. I had a busy weekend that kept me from posting, but at least I had time for mature consideration. I’m sure I was as surprised as anyone else. “This is, at best, premature,” I thought. I voted for […]
Read entry →October 7, 2009 · 162 words
Shroud II: the Deliverance
An Italian scientist has succeeded in duplicating the Shroud of Turin, which he says exposes the Shroud as a fake.Garlaschelli reproduced the full-sized shroud using materials and techniques that were available in the middle ages. They placed a linen sheet flat over a volunteer and then rubbed it with a pigment contain
Read entry →October 7, 2009 · 458 words
Reviews Too Late: In Bruges
Imagine a gangster film in which nothing happens. That’s where I thought I was for the first half of this movie, in a film about what gangsters are like when they’re on vacation and not being gangsters. Not that this is a bad thing. The first half of In Bruges is the best part. Nothing […]
Read entry →October 7, 2009 · 46 words
Free Spaces
The first seven chapters of Implied Spaces are now available for free on the Baen webscription site. If you don’t have your own copy yet, you might want to give them a read. For the following eighteen chapters, however, you still have to buy the book.
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