Filed under: Ad Astra, Art, Astronomy, Babylon 5, Bad Astronomy, J. Michael Straczynski, JMS, NASA, Science, Science Fiction, Slate, Space, tech | Tags: Andromeda, art, astronomy, Babylon 5, Babylon5, Bad Astronomy, blogging, Hubble, J. Michael Straczynski, jim downey, JMS, NASA, Phil Plait, photography, science, Science Fiction, Slate, space
I should have some interesting news to share in a couple of days. But for now, I thought I would share this amazing post from Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy:
Yesterday, I posted an amazing Hubble Space Telescope picture. I don’t think it’s too soon to post another shot from Hubble… and I think you’ll agree when you see it, especially after you get an understanding of what you’re seeing.
And as Plait notes, that’s the low-resolution image.
Go enjoy the article, and marvel at the images he has/links to. Seriously — it is worth your while, if you’re any kind of a space-geek at all.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Brave New World, Connections, Discover, Feedback, General Musings, Kindle, MetaFilter, New Horizons, Publishing, Science Fiction, Travel, Writing stuff, YouTube | Tags: Amazon, André Aciman, art, blogging, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, Her Final Year, jim downey, Kindle, literature, memoir, MetaFilter, reviews, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, travel, video, writing, www youtube
Got a couple of new reviews of Communion of Dreams over the weekend. Both are short enough to just post the whole thing. Here’s the first:
Hard to believe this is a first novel…, January 3, 2015
By Paula JeanWell plotted with disparate characterizations. Avoids science fiction cliches by and large. An interesting yarn with lots of good new ideas, thought provoking, and moves right along. Makes you want more. Bravo, Mr. Downey.
If you look through many of the reviews on Amazon and elsewhere, this is a fairly common comment: people are surprised that this is my first novel. I suppose that makes sense, since that information is right there on the ‘About the author’ section on Amazon and at the end of the book.
But the thing is, I’m not at all new to writing. And I’m not a young man. I’m 56, and have been writing fairly steadily since at least middle school. Essays. Short stories. Criticism. Advertising copy. Opinion pieces. Reviews. Memoir. Travelogues. Meditations. Instruction. Easily more than a million words — hell, I’ve written almost that many for this blog alone. So, probably a couple million words. As André Aciman says in this video (about the 2:00 mark):
I’ve written in all kinds of genres. And I’d like to think that most everything I do is governed by one idea, which is that you are after something that is quite difficult to articulate. And so most of the writing process is sort of prowling around this center, that you don’t see, but that the writing process will unveil and unearth for you.
It’s a way of discovering things. About the world. About people. About yourself.
And nowhere is this more obvious than in longform fiction. Communion helped me uncover a lot. St Cybi’s Well is helping me discover a lot more. I think that is why both books have taken such a long time to write, to work through. That process of unveiling (which is a major metaphor throughout Communion) is difficult, demanding, and never entirely done. You keep digging, keep whittling away, looking for a glimpse of the truth.
Speaking of whittling away, here’s the second review from this weekend:
By Amazon CustomerExcellent story. Well written, well-plotted. The dialogue and scene-setting is sparse, almost minimal, but that allows one to appreciate the plot that much more.
Happy New Year. Time for me to get back to work digging, digging, digging this Well.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Ad Astra, Amazon, Apollo program, Art, Astronomy, Brave New World, Comics, Connections, Faith healing, Feedback, General Musings, Health, Humor, ISS, Kindle, Man Conquers Space, Marketing, movies, NASA, Promotion, Publishing, Religion, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Space, Survival, tech, Travel, Violence, Wales | Tags: Amazon, Annie Wilcox, art, Atlas Obscura, blogging, Brian Merchant, Charles Fishman, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, free, health, humor, jim downey, JPL, Kindle, literature, Medium, Motherboard, movies, NASA, Patrick Modiano, Pentre Ifan, promotion, reviews, science, Science Fiction, space, St. Cybi's Well, Susan M. Toy, technology, The Atlantic, The Independent, Tomas Jivanda, travel, Wales, Waylon Strickland, writing, xkcd
A mix of little things, playing catch-up for the last couple of weeks …
Why catch-up? Well, this might explain why I took a break for a while there.
And we’re off …
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First thing, thanks to all who downloaded Communion of Dreams over the weekend, or helped to spread the word about it. There were a total of 693 downloads worldwide — and that includes various European portals, as well as Canada, India, and Japan! Pretty cool.
For those who have gotten the book, once you have a chance to read it please take a few moments to review it on Amazon or elsewhere – it really does help, and as I am finishing up writing St Cybi’s Well the feedback is most welcome.
* * *
A long, but quite good, read about the value of the ISS: 5,200 Days in Space
* * *
And a fun bit of perspective from xkcd about getting there:
* * *
Some great images from one of the sites I’ve mentioned here before: Pentre Ifan
Petre Ifan is a haunting burial stack that stands in a verdant Welsh field as one of the most complete and dramatic stone dolmens still found anywhere on the planet.
* * *
Wow.
Go see the full size image and explanation of the science. Worth it.
* * *
An excellent read by an old and dear friend: There’s an App for That: Cancer in the Modern Age
* * *
And another excellent read, all in all. But this paragraph is so painfully true:
“Writing is a strange and solitary activity. There are dispiriting times when you start working on the first few pages of a novel. Every day, you have the feeling you are on the wrong track. This creates a strong urge to go back and follow a different path. It is important not to give in to this urge, but to keep going. It is a little like driving a car at night, in winter, on ice, with zero visibility. You have no choice, you cannot go into reverse, you must keep going forward while telling yourself that all will be well when the road becomes more stable and the fog lifts.”
* * *
Any others to add? The 10 Sci-Fi Films That Defined 2014
* * *
Of course, reading is always better for you: Brain function ‘boosted for days after reading a novel’
See? I’m actually making you SMARTER! Keep that in mind when you write a review, will ya?
* * *
And that’s enough for now. I need to get back to my “strange and solitary activity”.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, NPR, Predictions, Science Fiction, Society, Terrorism | Tags: art, blogging, Communion of Dreams, Edenists, Greenpeace, jim downey, Nazca, NPR, Peru, predictions, Sam Sanders, Science Fiction, writing
From Chapter 9 of Communion of Dreams, about the ‘Edenists’:
“Please,” asked Johan Klee, “who are these Edenists? I do not believe that we have them in Europe.”
“Homegrown American kooks,” said Gates. “Take your worst nightmare right-wing Christian fundies, breed ‘em with ecological extremists, let the mix simmer in isolation for about twenty years, and you wind up with the Edenists: eco-terrorists who think that it’s God’s Will that mankind return to a primitive, pre-industrial state.”
I hate having these things be so damned accurate:
Greenpeace Apologizes For Stunt At Peru’s Sacred Nazca Lines
Greenpeace activists stand next to massive cloth letters next to the hummingbird geoglyph at Peru’s sacred Nazca lines. The Peruvian government is pursuing criminal charges against the activists.
Greenpeace has apologized to the people of Peru after activists entered a highly restricted area to leave a message on ancient, sacred desert land.
Activists placed giant, yellow letters spelling out, “Time for change! The future is renewable. Greenpeace,” near markings in the earth known as the Nazca lines.
Fanaticism, whether religious, moral, racial, or technological, is dangerous. Once you decide that your virtuous ends justify any means you use, horror is a predictable outcome.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Astronomy, Bad Astronomy, Connections, movies, NPR, Phil Plait, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Singularity, Slate, Space, tech, Wired, YouTube | Tags: ALMA, art, astronomy, Bad Astronomy, blogging, Blood Sweat & Tears, Interstellar, jim downey, Kip Thorne, movies, music, NPR, Phil Plait, photography, predictions, reviews, science, Science Fiction, space, technology, video, www youtube
The reviews have been mixed, but one aspect of the new movie Interstellar is pretty cool: the rendering of the black hole depicted in the movie. Even moreso since it is as scientifically accurate as possible, based on close collaboration with noted astrophysicist Kip Thorne:
Still, no one knew exactly what a black hole would look like until they actually built one. Light, temporarily trapped around the black hole, produced an unexpectedly complex fingerprint pattern near the black hole’s shadow. And the glowing accretion disk appeared above the black hole, below the black hole, and in front of it. “I never expected that,” Thorne says. “Eugénie just did the simulations and said, ‘Hey, this is what I got.’ It was just amazing.”
In the end, Nolan got elegant images that advance the story. Thorne got a movie that teaches a mass audience some real, accurate science. But he also got something he didn’t expect: a scientific discovery. “This is our observational data,” he says of the movie’s visualizations. “That’s the way nature behaves. Period.” Thorne says he can get at least two published articles out of it.
The video is remarkable. Seriously. Go watch it.
And in a nice bit of serendipity, there’s another fantastic bit of astrophysics in the news just now: actual images of planetary genesis from ALMA. Check it out:
A new image from ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, reveals extraordinarily fine detail that has never been seen before in the planet-forming disc around a young star. ALMA’s new high-resolution capabilities were achieved by spacing the antennas up to 15 kilometers apart [1]. This new result represents an enormous step forward in the understanding of how protoplanetary discs develop and how planets form.
ALMA has obtained its most detailed image yet showing the structure of the disc around HL Tau [2], a million-year-old Sun-like star located approximately 450 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Taurus. The image exceeds all expectations and reveals a series of concentric and bright rings, separated by gaps.
That’s not computer-rendered theory. That’s an actual image, showing the formation of planets around this very young star.
Wow.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Connections, Humor, Music, National Geographic, Predictions, Science Fiction, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: America the Beautiful, art, blogging, Elsie Kaplan, humor, jim downey, music, National Geographic, New Mexico, predictions, Science Fiction, Singing Road, St. Cybi's Well, Tijeras, video, Wales, writing
More than ten years ago I wrote the first version of what is now the opening page of St Cybi’s Well:
Darnell Sidwell had just crossed the Severn Bridge on the M4, heading west. He read the highway sign:
Sound Sculpture Ahead. Move to outer left lane, maintain speed of 70 kph.
He pulled the little GM rental hybrid into the left lane carefully, and thought about setting the cruise control, but was unsure where to find it on the unfamiliar vehicle. The car crossed the first warning rumble strips. Darnell turned his attention to the sound of the tires, and a few moments later was treated to a long, drawn-out rumble over a series of carefully spaced and specially shaped strips, which distinctly said: “WWWWW-ELLL-CCCCOOOOOMMME-TOOOOO-WWWWWAAAALLLESSSS”.
Playing with rumble strips is nothing new (and wasn’t when I first came up with the idea mentioned on my archive site above), but it’s fun to see that it is now being used more in the way I envisioned:
Sounds emanating from 1,300 feet of roadway just west of Tijeras have been listened to around the world, and it’s more than just tires on pavement catching international attention.
The Singing Road, installed last week, uses rumble strips to play “America the Beautiful” for drivers who obey the speed limit as they cruise down Route 66.
The National Geographic Channel approached the New Mexico Department of Transportation about the project last June, asking if they could construct the road for an upcoming series. The project was privately funded by National Geographic and NMDOT didn’t make – or spend – any money on it. Since the road was finished last week, Melissa Dosher, the public information officer for NMDOT, said she’s fielded questions from television stations as far away as Australia.
There’s a video (with sound) at the above site, so you can hear it. Fun stuff.
Jim Downey
HT to ML for the initial link last week.
Filed under: Art, Bipolar, Connections, Depression, Health, Predictions, Science, Slate | Tags: apophenia, art, bipolar, blogging, creative process, depression, health, jim downey, Katy Waldman, Lancaster University, medicine, mental health, Northwestern University, predictions, Rick Nauert, science, writing
Since this blog has recently picked up a bunch of additional followers, I’m going to reiterate something I’ve said in the past: I’m mildly bipolar. Have been all my adult life. My ‘natural’ bipolar cycle is about 18 months, though that can be influenced by outside factors. It’s mild enough that I’m able to manage my bipolar swings without medication, but I keep a close eye on it. I’m thankful that I can manage it without medication, because I have always perceived a connection between this bipolar condition and creativity.
And increasingly, science agrees with me:
Professor Steven Jones, co-director of Lancaster University’s Spectrum Centre, said, “It appears that the types of inspiration most related to bipolar vulnerability are those which are self-generated and linked with strong drive for success.
“Understanding more about inspiration is important because it is a key aspect of creativity which is highly associated with mental health problems, in particular bipolar disorder.”
“People with bipolar disorder highly value creativity as a positive aspect of their condition. This is relevant to clinicians, as people with bipolar disorder may be unwilling to engage with treatments and therapies which compromise their creativity.”
Bingo.
And then there’s this, from an article on apophenia:
Another possible culprit in apophenia is dopamine. A 2002 experiment revealed that people with high levels of dopamine more often extract meaning from coincidences than those with lower dopamine levels. And when self-described skeptics (team “UFOs are fake”) were given the drug L-dopa, which ups the brain’s dopamine supply, they began to perform more like self-described believers (team “I can speak to spirits”) on the same pattern-finding tasks. Likewise, when Brugger and his colleagues administered dopamine to a group of healthy adult men, that group proved more likely than a control group to notice visual similarities between random pairs of shapes.
Personal accounts from manic patients fizz with an almost compulsive meaning-making, but the research on connections between apophenia and bipolar disorder is thin. One clue: Just like people with schizotypal tendencies, people at risk for bipolar disorder often ace creativity tests. They seem to excel especially at the type of “intuitive, open-minded thinking” that results in surprising associations. (Though he hasn’t studied apophenia and bipolar disorder, Brugger says he would “assume that you see connections everywhere in a manic state.”) A symptom of mania known as clanging, in which ideas are strung together not in a logical order but because of how the words sound, has an apophenic aura.
Related, this news about another scientific discovery concerning depression:
The first blood test to diagnose major depression in adults has been developed by Northwestern Medicine scientists, a breakthrough approach that provides the first objective, scientific diagnosis for depression. The test identifies depression by measuring the levels of nine RNA blood markers. RNA molecules are the messengers that interpret the DNA genetic code and carry out its instructions.
* * *
“This clearly indicates that you can have a blood-based laboratory test for depression, providing a scientific diagnosis in the same way someone is diagnosed with high blood pressure or high cholesterol,” said Eva Redei, who developed the test and is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “This test brings mental health diagnosis into the 21st century and offers the first personalized medicine approach to people suffering from depression.”
I suspect that it won’t be long until some similar test is developed for markers indicating bipolar condition.
Oops, there I go, drawing connections again …
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Connections, H. R. Giger, movies, Paleo-Future, Science Fiction, YouTube | Tags: art, blogging, Dan O'Bannon, Dune, Frank Herbert, jim downey, Jodorowsky, Moebius, movies, Open Culture, Science Fiction, video, www youtube
I keep forgetting to watch Jodorowsky’s Dune … about the movie adaptation which was almost made. This item from Open Culture will give you a taste of what it might have been like:
Moebius’ Storyboards & Concept Art for Jodorowsky’s Dune
A decade before David Lynch’s flawed but visually brilliant adaptation of Dune hit the silver screen (see our post on that from Monday), another cinematic visionary tried to turn Frank Herbert’s cult book into a movie. And it would have been a mind-bogglingly grand epic.
And be sure to check out the still images. Great stuff, and would have made one hell of a Science Fiction movie. Perhaps a completely *bonkers* one, but nonetheless …
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Book Conservation, tech, University of Missouri | Tags: 1480, art, blogging, book conservation, bookbinding, incunabula, jim downey, Legacy Bookbindery, technology, Thomas Aquinas, University of Missouri
Been a little while since I did a book conservation post. So let’s have some fun.
Recently I had this item come in for some minor work: Summa contra gentiles by Thomas Aquinas, printed in Venice in 1480. That makes it an incunabula, one of the relatively rare books published before 1501 (in this case, just a quarter century or so after the Gutenberg Bible). Even more noteworthy, this book is still in its original binding. And that binding is in remarkably good condition.
Here’s a pic of the outside of the binding:
Lovely. And an excellent example of bindings of that period. That’s the front cover, a nice very deep red (almost a dark brown to the eye) in goatskin. What I love is the way the binder used fairly simple tools to create an elaborate cover design. Here’s a detail:
And the hardware is wonderful, too. Here’s a detail of the front clasp hardware:
That clasp was designed to receive a simple hook attached to a leather strap mounted on the back, here:
Also, take note of the delightful small brass strip mounted on the corners:
There’s a similar strip mounted to the bottom (called the “tail” in bookbinding) edge of the covers, near the spine of the book on both the front and rear. That protects the cover from excessive wear when the book would be resting in a lectern or something similar for reading (books in this time period were usually shelved on their side):
Cool, eh? But the real treasure of this binding was revealed when I removed the (probably) 19th century endpapers which had been added. Under that was the original structure of the book, showing both the original boards (probably quarter-sawn oak) as well as the way the supporting strips of alum-tawed goatskin of the sewing structure was laced into those boards. Here’s an overview:
And here’s a detail showing how the supporting strips were lain within a small channel carved into the wooden board covers, and then pinned in place using a softer wood or (in this case) other leather:
But equally cool is a detail shot showing the simplicity of how the leather cover comes around the corner of the board:
Lastly, here’s a little detail from one sheet inside:
It’s a little hard to tell what it is you’re seeing there, so let me explain. The darker strip is the outside edge of a piece of vellum which has been adhered to the spine of the text block. This was added *before* the supporting strips of alum-tawed goatskin were laced into the wooden covers, and just serves to help protect the exposed sewing thread.
So, there you have it: a perfect example of late 15th century binding. Just like all the history books (and book conservation training) says it should be, but exposed by me today for the first time in probably 200 years or so.
Fun stuff. Have I mentioned recently how cool my job is?
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 