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Saturday/Sunday Starlinking

April 4th, 2009

Getting set up here in China and getting over the jet lag has been a trick.  I just watched the Houston Rockets lose to the LA Lakers over the internet (using a slingbox) Friday night, but here it was Saturday morning.  Anyway, finally back to doing a bit of websurfing and feeling like I have something like a predictable schedule.  Still, I ate intestines and stomach of some sort of animals last night, and something this morning I could not identify and did not like…I think there will be a blog post coming.

And I wrote the above about 20 hours ago.  My colleague came and we worked, and when he left I went to take a nap.  I woke up at 4am here, some 11 hours later.  Tired and jetlagged, alot.

Anyway, here it is now Sunday.  I started this post Saturday, and I think it is Saturday in the U.S.  Saturday night starlinks for you, Sunday for me.

Over at Science Not Fiction, an entry about Sci-Fi College Courses, which interests me greatly as I sometimes teach one.

What would it look like to fall into a black hole.  Video.  Based on general relativity, so check it out.

Fiction rule of thumb, concerning the quality of a book and the number of made-up words in it.  xkcd comic.  I almost grok it.

100 Hours of Astronomy live webcasts, at least it was still live when I meant to link to it yesterday.

Quantum setback for warp drives.  Looks like a fundamental flaw in the Alcubierre warp drive, I mean beyond the fact that we don’t know how to build one anyway.  FTL is still SOL.

At symmetry, Brain Malow writes about being a science comedian.  Interesting niche he has there.  I can be funny in print.  I can also be funny in person, although it is usually unplanned, sometimes at my own expense.  But telling a joke…I can do it okay, sometimes, but I am my father’s son, and he usually remembers the punch line and tells it before the set-up, which is rarely forthcoming.

Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy writes about Star Formation the Game, commissioned by Discover magazine.  If you get the science right in games like this, the learning becomes easy.

Interesting but sad article about Freeman Dyson, who I fear was never as important or as serious as I once thought.  I think he should have been forced to get a PhD and jusitfy himself in his youth with more than philosophy and faith.  The guy has a lot of interesting ideas, but should not be taken seriously any more seriously than your typical science fiction writer as he has no follow-through.

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5 Responses to “Saturday/Sunday Starlinking”

  1. russ Says:
    April 5th, 2009 at 1:11 am

    About Dyson: in that article, various friends and Dyson himself keep talking about how he seems to oppose the mainstream just for the sake of doing so. It’s odd.

    Also this part struck me:
    > Beyond the specific points of factual dispute, Dyson has said that it all boils down to “a deeper disagreement about values” between those who think “nature knows best” and that “any gross human disruption of the natural environment is evil,” and “humanists,” like himself, who contend that protecting the existing biosphere is not as important as fighting more repugnant evils like war, poverty and unemployment.

    …To me that sounds like “There’s no point fixing about your broken leg, since you have cancer.” It’s a false dichotomy. Certainly humanity is capable of addressing different problems simultaneously.

  2. Mike Brotherton Says:
    April 5th, 2009 at 4:51 am

    Absolutely, Russ. It’s like he has this magic table listing the world’s problems with some secret cost-benefit ratio (divorced from actual research or politics of course) because his philosophy is superior to others.

    And I make the point about the false dichotomy defending the space program, basic research, etc., all the time. There are lots of good things to spend money on, and if you spent all your money on the top problem, you still wouldn’t fix it, and all the rest would worsen.

    Besides, one reason he thinks global warming is not a problem is that we can just plant more trees to soak up the carbon (ha, let’s see it!). And if regular trees won’t do it, well, special bioengineered trees should do the trick. Visionary, perhaps possible, but you don’t count on new tech until you have it, and even then there would have to be the political will to put these into the environment. I see a sf story there.

  3. Rogerio Says:
    April 6th, 2009 at 5:42 am

    well, I still think we should pursue Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, even if Dyson (one of its leading proponents, who was behind Project Orion) is such kind of man. We were supposed to reach Saturn in the 60s! :(

  4. Walt Says:
    April 12th, 2009 at 9:42 pm

    Regarding the problems of climate change, bioengineered trees sounds a lot more plausible than political solutions.

  5. Mike Brotherton Says:
    April 13th, 2009 at 1:46 am

    Until some fear monger stirs up everyone about the “Frankentrees” and people burn them down as fast as they’re planted.

    Or…they spread out of control and we’re faced with a drop in CO2 and freezing temperatures, and are forced to burn coal reserves just to compensate until the GM Tree Weevils can kill the trees…

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