Filed under: Babylon 5, Connections, Failure, General Musings, Government, Health, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Science Fiction, Society, Terrorism, Violence, Writing stuff, YouTube | Tags: Babylon 5, blogging, CWC, health, jim downey, politics, predictions, Science Fiction, Syria, writing, www youtube
As we were on our morning walk, I rolled my right hand over a bit and looked at the blade of it. My wife looked down at it as well.
“How is it doing?”
I flexed the hand back and forth a bit. The pale yellow-green of a late-stage bruise was still very evident.
* * * * * * *
U.S. Warns Syria on Chemical Weapons
WASHINGTON — President Obama warned Syria on Monday not to use chemical weapons against its own people, vowing to hold accountable anyone who did, even as American intelligence officials picked up signs that such arms might be deployed in the fighting there.
The White House said it had an “increased concern” that the government of President Bashar al-Assad was preparing to use such weapons, effectively confirming earlier reports of activity at chemical weapons sites. The administration said it would take action if they were used, suggesting even the possibility of military force.
“Today I want to make it absolutely clear to Assad and those under his command: The world is watching,” Mr. Obama said in a speech at the National Defense University in Washington. “The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable. If you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences and you will be held accountable.”
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From The Long, Twilight Struggle:
Londo Mollari: Refa, any force attempting to invade Narn would be up to its neck in blood–its own!
Lord Refa: We have no intention of invading Narn. Flattening it, yes–but invading it? We will be using mass drivers. By the time we are done their cities will be in ruins, we can move in at our leisure!
Londo Mollari: Mass drivers? They have been outlawed by every civilized planet!
Lord Refa: These are uncivilized times.
Londo Mollari: We have treaties!
Lord Refa: Ink on a page!
* * * * * * *
The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons. Its full name is the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction. The agreement is administered by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is an independent organization based in The Hague, Netherlands.
The main obligation under the convention is the prohibition of use and production of chemical weapons, as well as the destruction of all chemical weapons. The destruction activities are verified by the OPCW. As of January 2013, around 78% of the (declared) stockpile of chemical weapons has thus been destroyed.[5][6] The convention also has provisions for systematic evaluation of chemical and military plants, as well as for investigations of allegations of use and production of chemical weapons based on intelligence of other state parties.
Currently 188 states are party to the CWC, and another two countries (Israel and Myanmar) have signed but not yet ratified the convention.[1]
Syria is one of six UN member states who are not signatories to the Convention.
* * * * * * *
Shortly after the conversation above:
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Syria crisis: ‘Strong evidence’ of chemical attacks, in Saraqeb
The BBC has been shown evidence which appears to corroborate reports of a chemical attack in the northern Syrian town of Saraqeb last month. Eyewitnesses and victims say that government helicopters dropped at least two devices containing poisonous gas on the town.
The Syrian government says it did not and will not use chemical weapons.
Shortly after midday on 29 April, the town of Saraqeb came under attack from government military positions about five miles (8km) away. A local activist we met filmed as the shells landed.
* * * * * * *
As we were on our morning walk, I rolled my right hand over a bit and looked at the blade of it. My wife looked down at it as well.
“How is it doing?”
I flexed the hand back and forth a bit. The pale yellow-green of a late-stage bruise was still very evident.
“It’s healing. The pain has gone from being that bright, intense flash you get from a broken bone to a dull but substantial ache. That tells me that it’s knitting back together properly. A few more days of not stressing the hand, and it’ll be OK.”
We paused, watched the dog take care of his business. As I reached down with a plastic bag to remove the results from the neighbor’s lawn, I thought about how lucky I was.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, Augmented Reality, Brave New World, ISS, Man Conquers Space, Music, NASA, Science, Science Fiction, Space, tech, YouTube | Tags: Chris Hadfield, David Bowie, ISS, music, NASA, science, Science Fiction, space, video, www youtube
How cool is this?
How cool is Chris Hadfield?
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Astronomy, Cassini, Government, MetaFilter, Music, NASA, Saturn, Science, Science Fiction, Space, Weather, YouTube | Tags: art, Blood Sweat & Tears, Cassini, Communion of Dreams, hurricane, jim downey, MetaFilter, music, NASA, photography, Saturn, science, Science Fiction, space, Spinning Wheels, The Rose, www youtube
The Rose
The spinning vortex of Saturn’s north polar storm resembles a deep red rose of giant proportions surrounded by green foliage in this false-color image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Measurements have sized the eye at a staggering 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) across with cloud speeds as fast as 330 miles per hour (150 meters per second).
A fascinating short video and full explanation can be found on NASA’s site:
PASADENA, Calif. – NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists the first close-up, visible-light views of a behemoth hurricane swirling around Saturn’s north pole.
In high-resolution pictures and video, scientists see the hurricane’s eye is about 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide, 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth. Thin, bright clouds at the outer edge of the hurricane are traveling 330 mph(150 meters per second). The hurricane swirls inside a large, mysterious, six-sided weather pattern known as the hexagon.
Very cool. If I ever have reason to revise Communion of Dreams, I would certainly include reference to The Rose since most everything happens on and around Titan.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Humor, movies, Reproduction, Science Fiction, Society, Space, YouTube | Tags: humor, jim downey, movies, Peter Serafinowicz, Science Fiction, space, video, www youtube
No, really … whoa.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Astronomy, Fireworks, Music, NASA, NPR, Science, Space, YouTube | Tags: art, fireworks, Jerry Lee Lewis, jim downey, music, NASA, NPR, science, Solar Dynamics Observatory, space, www youtube
Via NPR, this gorgeous, stunning vid:
And while I think the music they use is wonderful, I think they missed an obvious choice …
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, Brave New World, Connections, movies, Music, NASA, New Horizons, NPR, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, SETI, Society, Space, tech, YouTube | Tags: 13.7 Blog, blogging, Communion of Dreams, Drake Equation, exoplanets, jim downey, Kepler mission, Marcelo Gleiser, music, NASA, NPR, Pink Floyd, predictions, science, Science Fiction, SETI, space, technology, TESS, The Wall, www youtube
From the opening pages of Communion of Dreams:
Jon sat there for a moment, trying to digest what Seth said. According to what pretty much everyone thought, it wasn’t possible. SETI, OSETI, META and BETA had pretty much settled that question for most scientists decades ago, and twenty years of settlement efforts throughout the solar system hadn’t changed anyone’s mind. Even with the Advanced Survey Array out at Titan Prime searching nearby systems for good settlement prospects, there had never been an indication that there was an intelligent, technologically advanced race anywhere within earshot.
It’s one of the very basic questions of space science: are we (sentient beings) unique? Rare? Common? There are a lot of ways to think about it, and here’s a nice piece on NPR discussing some of the relevant parts of the question and what we’re doing about it. An excerpt:
So, to address the first part of the question we must find out how unique the Earth is. We then should figure out how unique life, and humans, are. Fortunately, thanks to NASA’s Kepler mission, we are making huge progress in the first part of the answer. A key finding is that the majority of stars (around 70 percent) have at least one planet orbiting around them. Based on the data so far (2,740 planet candidates and 115 confirmations), Kepler scientists estimate that some 17 percent of these are Earth-size, meaning with similar mass and rocky composition as the Earth, and possibly close enough to their parent star that water, if present, could be in its liquid state.
More good news arrived on this front earlier this month as NASA authorized the construction of Kepler’s successor, TESS (for Transit Exoplanet Survey Satellite). With launch scheduled for 2017, TESS will survey a much wider area of the sky than Kepler, while focusing mostly on stars that are closer. This way, it will use spectroscopy to resolve at least part of the atmospheric composition of the exoplanets. The goal is to find telling signs of life-related compounds such as ozone, water, carbon dioxide and, if we’re really lucky, even chlorophyll. Successful detection would be very exciting, as it’d point to what optimists expect, a few fairly close Earth-like planets with metabolizing beings.
I hope I live long enough that science is able to make a definitive affirmation of life, then intelligent life, outside our own planet.
Until then, well, there’s science fiction.
Jim Downey
Filed under: movies, Science Fiction, Travel, YouTube | Tags: movies, Science Fiction, time travel, travel, video, www youtube
A very old trope, with a good interpretation:
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Augmented Reality, Connections, Feedback, General Musings, Predictions, Publishing, Science Fiction, tech, Writing stuff, YouTube | Tags: architecture, art, arts, blogging, Communion of Dreams, construction, D. Westry, feedback, jim downey, literature, painting, predictions, Science Fiction, Scrivener, St. Cybi's Well, video, writing, www youtube
A number of friends and others have asked me how the writing is going on St. Cybi’s Well. It’s a natural question, but it’s a little hard to explain. Here’s the gist of what I have been telling people:
Using the Scrivener software, it really is a different process than what writing Communion of Dreams was like. It’s less linear. But it’s more balanced & comprehensive. Let’s put it this way – I have components now done in all 19 chapters of the book (plus the prelude). Some of it is just landscape descriptions, drawn from my previous travelogues. Some of it is character sketches. Or specific scenes. Or notes about something which needs to happen. It’s different. It feels more productive. But it’s kinda hard to explain.
This morning, after I got up at 3:00 for physiological needs, as I was trying to get back to sleep I was thinking more about this (well, and thinking through some scenes for the book — I do a lot of that in the middle of the night), and I came up with a couple of analogies which may help non-writers understand what the different processes are like.
First is constructing a building. Writing Communion, the metaphor would be that I picked a nice location for my building, leveled the ground, poured a concrete pad of sufficient size, and then started building a brick wall on one corner, working my way around the entire pad brick by brick as I went, making determinations as to locations of doors and windows and whatnot according to a rough plan I had in my head. Once the exterior wall was completed, I put a roof on it, then proceeded to do much the same process inside the building for interior walls and all that, using the mostly set exterior as a hard limit to what could be done internally.
With St. Cybi’s Well, the metaphor would be that I went to an architect/engineer, and did all the design and layout of the building in advance. Before a single footing was dug, or materials ordered, I knew pretty exactly how I wanted the entire thing to look. Then once all that was sorted, the actual construction was done entirely differently. Footings were dug, concrete poured. Then a steel framework was put in place for both the interior and exterior walls, and roof trusses positioned. Once this internal skeleton was finished, then I would start to put up sheathing material for the walls and roof, proceeding to finished surfaces.
See the difference? One feels almost organic, and makes sense to the outside observer from the very start. The other feels a little more arcane or artificial, and it isn’t obvious what the finished product will look like until well into the building process.
OK, let’s try another metaphor: art. Specifically, painting.
Some artists work in a way which seems natural and obvious. They pick a subject, usually do some rough sketches on their canvas to help get all the elements sorted out & proportioned. Then they’ll start to apply pigment according to their particular style or technique. Some of which may be a little hard to understand for a casual observer, but the basic process makes sense — you can see the different aspects emerging organically.
But there are artists who work in a completely different way. They have a concept in their head, and will proceed to do a series of fairly random strokes of paint. Each stroke is crucial, each one in the perfect place, but the end result isn’t clear to the observer until the final moments, when the last few elements are done and suddenly the artist’s vision breaks through. Like this:
Now, don’t try to over-think these analogies, or to take them too literally. They’re just intended to help illuminate some of the differences in process between this current novel, and the last one.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work on my building.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Book Conservation, Connections, SCA, tech, U of Iowa Ctr for the Book, YouTube | Tags: art, Bill Anthony, blogging, book conservation, bookbinding, calligraphy, Getty Museum, illumination, jim downey, Legacy Bookbindery, manuscript, medieval, SCA, video, www youtube
This item from the Getty on making illuminated manuscripts is making the rounds among my friends who are into things medieval. It’s relatively short, quite good, and covers the basics nicely.
But I particularly wanted to share it because when it gets to the bookbinding part (at about 4:30) it shows my bookbinding mentor, the late Bill Anthony, doing the work.
Bill was one hell of a craftsman, and a better bookbinder than I’ll ever be. No, that’s not false humility — I’m now just a few years younger than Bill was when he participated in making this video. But at that point in his life he had been a bookbinder for more than 40 years. I’d have to continue to work at it full time for at least another 20 years to have the same time in harness. And since I’m distracted by writing and other things, well, it’d probably take another 40 years to even have a chance to achieve the same level of proficiency. But that’s OK — I’m happy with the choices I’ve made, and the things I have accomplished (and still hope to accomplish).
Anyway, I wanted to share this.
Jim Downey
