July 18, 2008

100% renewable energy in 10 years?

Gorechallenge Gore calls for the US to set the goal of using 100% renewable energy in ten years.

I'd love to see that happen.  I'm not sure the tech it there yet, but my real gut level fear is  that the American Public has the balls or the will power to pull it off. 

The one thing America still does better than anyone else on the planet is sell culture and ideas to consumers.  If we can get that marketing power behind this, and not trying to fool people into thinking products are Green that aren't  maybe it will work.

July 17, 2008

What kind of Music are you? - I'm Classical

You Are Classical Music
You are a somewhat serious person who enjoys studying subjects deeply.
Art of all kinds interests you, and a good piece of art can really effect you emotionally.
You are inspired by human achievement, and you appreciate work that takes years to accomplish.
For you, the finer things in life are not about snobbery - they're about quality.

July 16, 2008

Hilary has McCain's love child! - OR - Maybe it's the Tabloid Spam Worm

If that got your attention you need to be on the look out for the latest Internet virus/worm/spam/thingie.  This new wave of nastiness used tabloid style headlines that look legit to launch a computer worm.  I got a couple of warnings about this today from various sources.   I  looked into it a little myself since I tend to be a little unsure about Internet disaster warnings. According to MSNBC's Red Tape chronicles  it seems to be a legit problem. 

This just in from the scientific journals - Hubble Kaleidoscope Finds Evidence Of Space Looking All Crazy

Sometimes Onion just cracks me up.

Onion

July 15, 2008

Victroy of Eagles - Naomi Novik

Just finished Victory of Eagles by Naiomi Novik. Voe

I'm still enjoying the heck out of this series.  I like it enough that, even though I thought the third book was a little slow, when the fifth book came out in hardback I broke my no-hard-back rule and bought it rather than wait.  I think I'd like to find the whole series in hardcover one day, but it's going to run to some money, since I'm not sure all the books were published hard cover in the US.

One of the things I like about these books is that unlike so many series the characters change and evolve over the course of the books, and the heroes don't always win, or get away with flaunting authority or social convention, just because they are doing what the modern 21st century reader might think is the right thing to do.  Temeraire, a black Celestial dragon the size of a battleship is both a loyal member of the British armed services, and a rabble rousing political reformer as radical as Karl Marx.  He is, earnest and often naive, which makes him very endearing, but even though he still tends to win arguments because people don't argue with enormous dragons, he is developing some political savvy.  He still sees most of the world as black and white with the right answer to any problem obvious.  The contrast between him and his human companion William Laurence, who is and aristocrat from the Noblesse Oblige tradition and a Ship's captain in the British Navy before their paths crossed, makes for some the the tension in the plot.  Although the books are set at the time of the Napoleonic wars, and are for the most part swashbuckling action-adventures it is not too hard to see that Temeraire's "obvious" answers to things like basic rights for any members of a society, management  based on status rather than merit, and  he compensation due people who fight for their country, have echoes in the real world today. Which, is part of what makes the books so fun.

July 14, 2008

"Gateway" SF reads for women.

There is an interesting conversation on this topic going on at Megan McArdle's Asymmetrical Information blog at Atlantic.Com of all places.  From some of the books being recommended by the male posters I'm guessing that most of them are my age or older, and stopped reading SF on a regular basis after college, or shorty after they got their "real" job in their 20's.  The vast majority of suggestions are older "classic" SF.  Many of the posters seem clueless of the vast about of SF written by and for women in the past 15 to 20 years, and are still using Heinlein as an example of a SF writer women might read because he has female characters.  Some of them have heard of Anne McCaffery, C J Cherryh and maybe Connie Willis,  Louis McMasters Bujold or Octavia Butler,  but they don't seem to have any idea women writers like Cathrine Asario, Julie Czernada, Elizabeth Bear, Karen Traviss, Julian May, and Linnea Sinclair are out there.

July 10, 2008

It's the near future version of Fred Flintstone's car.

Seriously, this new car, the Antro out of Hungary haspeddles in the back seat so the passengers can work up a sweat to help keep the battery charged.  ANtroIt's got a carbon fiber body, weigh only 600 pounds and is predicted to get 150 MPG.  I can't see the status driven soccer mom's trading in their gas hog SUV's and making their kids peddle when going uphill, but it looks pretty sweet. 

Quite a change from last year in the garden.

And the flowers are doing great too.  This is quite a change from last year when we stopped getting enough rain to speak of in late May and everything was bleached straw brown by now. 

Garden7102

All the sunflowers are volunteers, that came up either from seeds dropped last year's plants for from the bird seed.

Home grown blackberries

Yumm!

Berries

July 09, 2008

Solar powered Prius?

Not really, but sort of.  The next generation of Prius (what is the plural of Prius by the way, Priii?) will have solar pannels on the roof that will power the car's AC.  Here's a link to the CBS new story on the subject.Priii

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Where I spend my time

  • Cincinnati Writer's Project
    A support group for the Cincinnati writing community
  • Cincinnati Observatory Center
    The first observatory in the western hemisphere, still a working teaching observatory and a National Historic Landmark.
  • Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden
    One of the best zoos in the world. I've been an education volunteer here since I was 15.
  • Cincinnati Museum Center
    A nice Museum in one of the most wonderful Art Deco buildings in the world. It has a special place in my heart because I met my husband in the basement of the Natural History Museum.
  • Dry Dredgers
    Local fossil collectors and paleontology club.
  • Amity Unlimited
    Where the paycheck comes from. If you need something printed or mailed give us a call.

Science Fiction

  • EscapePod
    Very nice podcast SF magazine. Great mix of work from new emerging writers and established pros.
  • Context
    Non-media SF con in Columbus OH, Great writer's workshop, for any one interested in writing SF. Fantasy, Horror or slipstream ficton.
  • Millennicon
    Cincinnati area Con. Small, well run, always a good time.
  • Strange Horizons, a weekly speculative fiction magazine
    On line Mag. SF, Fantasy and Slipstream Fiction.

Great local Institutions you should support

Slate Magazine