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Note to Self Again:
30/9/10 08:37Do not overdo. That's all.
30/9/10
Ooo Ooo Ooo Ooo!
Via the fabulousness that is Kij Johnson: Scientists have found an earth-like planet that appears to be capable of sustaining, as we SF people say, life as we know it. A mere 20 light years away. Could there be life there?
Okay. One man's opinion doesn't constitute proof. But, as astronomer Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution put it, the question wouldn't be to defend that there is life at Gliese 581g. "The question," he said, "would be to demonstrate that there isn't."
One of my favorite lines in Contact, a movie I really love (O! Jodie Foster! O! David Morrison and Tom Skerrit! O! space!) is when the small Ellie asks her father if there's life on other planets. "I don't know, Sparks. But I guess I'd say if it is just us... seems like an awful waste of space."
Oh, the 14 year old space-geek in me is just jumping up and down and up and down and up and down. Damn.
Via the fabulousness that is Kij Johnson: Scientists have found an earth-like planet that appears to be capable of sustaining, as we SF people say, life as we know it. A mere 20 light years away. Could there be life there?
"Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say that the chances for life on this planet are 100 percent. I have almost no doubt about it," Steven Vogt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at University of California Santa Cruz, told Discovery News.
Okay. One man's opinion doesn't constitute proof. But, as astronomer Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution put it, the question wouldn't be to defend that there is life at Gliese 581g. "The question," he said, "would be to demonstrate that there isn't."
One of my favorite lines in Contact, a movie I really love (O! Jodie Foster! O! David Morrison and Tom Skerrit! O! space!) is when the small Ellie asks her father if there's life on other planets. "I don't know, Sparks. But I guess I'd say if it is just us... seems like an awful waste of space."
Oh, the 14 year old space-geek in me is just jumping up and down and up and down and up and down. Damn.
Somewhere In April, 1811
30/9/10 14:04I have been trying to figure out troop movements in the book. It has been a pain in the butt--for some reason all the tactics I have used in years past--file cards, charts, lists, etc.--were not sticking to my brain.
And then this morning, more or less on a whim, I entered April 9, 1811 into iCal...and lo and get-hold* there was a calendar with days of the week, into which I could enter events color-coded for each of the major characters. And since I'm not living in 1811, this doesn't conflict with any personal, more current appointments. I now have things pretty much figured out backward--which is to say, the sequence of events for various players from the beginning of the precipitating event to the point at which I've run out of copy.
Now I have to start filling in events forward of that point. Which will take more thinking. But: framework. Color-coded framework! This tactic might not work for anyone else, but it's tickling the hell outta me.
*colorful phrase of my mother's.
And then this morning, more or less on a whim, I entered April 9, 1811 into iCal...and lo and get-hold* there was a calendar with days of the week, into which I could enter events color-coded for each of the major characters. And since I'm not living in 1811, this doesn't conflict with any personal, more current appointments. I now have things pretty much figured out backward--which is to say, the sequence of events for various players from the beginning of the precipitating event to the point at which I've run out of copy.
Now I have to start filling in events forward of that point. Which will take more thinking. But: framework. Color-coded framework! This tactic might not work for anyone else, but it's tickling the hell outta me.
*colorful phrase of my mother's.
The Social Network
30/9/10 21:37I hope Jesse Eisenberg gets an Oscar™ nomination. Aaron Sorkin, too. The film manages to make you see, not only the "Mark Zuckerberg" character's ambition and his hyper-articulate inarticulateness (if he doesn't fit somewhere on the Aspergers spectrum, someone wasn't paying attention) but the fragility underneath it. Before hand I was wondering about the mix of Sorkin and David Fincher (he of Fight Club and Se7en): the film doesn't leave you elevated the way The West Wing and The American President do--but it isn't relentlessly downbeat, and the occasional creepiness is effective and earned.
I don't know how much of it is true; although it's pretty much Zuckerberg's story, it's pretty evenhanded in leaving blame lying around for all the players. But it's a damned effective piece of drama.
I don't know how much of it is true; although it's pretty much Zuckerberg's story, it's pretty evenhanded in leaving blame lying around for all the players. But it's a damned effective piece of drama.