Hey Vaude, I recollect that you did send me quite a few images before. If you still have them on file can you send them again?
Here are Vaude’s books (thus far):
Category: Articles
You Can Contribute.
Here’s just a little reminder for everyone, and some information for new members here: If you delve into the history of this blog you’ll find a number of ways you can contribute.
The bookmarks competition finishes on New Year’s Day. Design me some bookmarks that use the Jon Sullivan artwork and display the eddress of this blog and you could be the winner of some signed copies. The winner gets the Cormac series and the Spatterjay series (new covers), second place gets the Spatterjay series, whilst the top three additionally get copies of my books that they haven’t got in their collection … oh, and when I say that, I mean any of the Macmillan books – all signed of course.
I’ve been running a series of profiles and still want contributions. The title was ‘Who Reads My Books?’ For anyone who is interested, I’d like a short biography and some photographs of you. Tell me about yourself, advertise if you want, if you have a blog or a website of your own then let me know. Thus far (if my recollection is right) we have plenty of IT guys, a pilot, a geneticist, writers, a composer, jewellery maker and much more besides. But don’t be intimidated by these – I want to know about YOU and your interests. Remember, before I got where I am now I used to cut grass for a living.
It’s also interesting to see photos of people’s SFF collections. I enjoy having a look at them and so do many of those who come here. Let’s have a look!
Send your photographs etc here ndotasheratvirgindotnet
Finally, I’ll shortly be doing another video clip to post up here so I would like some more questions. I’ll answer as many of these as I can within the 10 minutes allowed (You Tube) then carry over what’s left to the next clip. Post your questions in the comments section here.
More Marie Srbic Bookmarks
Piltdown Man
Just for those of you that might not have heard of this, here’s how scientific fraud can put us back years. it also seems to be an episode from which little has been learned.
Whoever perpetrated the crime, it is considered to be one of the most damaging scientific hoaxes of all time, because it set the development of evolutionary theory back for years while researchers labored pointlessly to integrate a fake skull into the fossil record.
From The Skeptic’s Dictionary, which rather amused me considering the stance there on other matters (I put the bold bit there):
Because of the public nature of science and the universal application of its methods, and because of the fact that the majority of scientists are not crusaders for their own untested or untestable prejudices, as many pseudoscientists are, whatever errors are made by scientists are likely to be discovered by other scientists. The discovery will be enough to get science back on track. The same can’t be said for the history of quacks and pseudoscientists where errors do not get detected because their claims are not tested properly. And when critics identify errors, they are ignored by true believers.
Scientists were fooled by this hoax for 40 years, until the weight of other finds finally drove some of them to take a close look at the skull itself, and find out it was a fake. One can hope things might work faster in this Internet age.
Nano Battery & Terminator
A couple here from my brother:
Although they don’t necessarily follow Moore’s law, batteries have still gotten smaller and more efficient as the years pass. The current go-to power cell of choice is the lithium-ion battery. It’s already quite small as it is, but some scientists think it can get even smaller. How small? Try nanometers.
Well, it looks like this is one aspect of fictional robotics that’s starting to catch up with reality. Researchers at Arizona State designed a system that lets synthetics recreate the natural healing process found in organics. It uses shape-memory or mimetic polymers embedded with a network of fiber optics. The network senses any damage to the system, then delivers heat to the “wounded” area to repair it.
The Drake Equation
I did enjoy the program on BBC4 last night The Search for Life: The Drake Equation. If you can use I-player then I suggest you go take a look. But what is the Drake Equation? This explanation lifted from SETI lays it out nicely:
Is there a way to estimate the number of technologically advanced civilizations that might exist in our Galaxy? While working at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia, Dr. Frank Drake conceived a means to mathematically estimate the number of worlds that might harbor beings with technology sufficient to communicate across the vast gulfs of interstellar space. The Drake Equation, as it came to be known, was formulated in 1961 and is generally accepted by the scientific community.
N = R* fp ne fl fi fc L
where,
N = The number of communicative civilizations
R* = The rate of formation of suitable stars (stars such as our Sun)
fp = The fraction of those stars with planets. (Current evidence indicates that planetary systems may be common for stars like the Sun.)
ne = The number of Earth-like worlds per planetary system
fl = The fraction of those Earth-like planets where life actually develops
fi = The fraction of life sites where intelligence develops
fc = The fraction of communicative planets (those on which electromagnetic communications technology develops)
L = The “lifetime” of communicating civilizations
Frank Drake’s own current solution to the Drake Equation estimates 10,000 communicative civilizations in the Milky Way. Dr. Drake, who serves on the SETI League’s advisory board, has personally endorsed SETI’s planned all-sky survey.
Moving no from the Drake Equation you then get to the Fermi Paradox:
The Fermi Paradox is the apparent contradiction between the high probability extraterrestrial civilizations’ existence and the lack of contact with such civilizations.
In this program, I like how these two are covered. Consider how much of the EM spectrum there is to cover, how much our usage of radio has changed in just a few decades (AM to FM for example). Consider too a simple calculation: 100 billion (the number of stars in our galaxy) divided by that number of civilizations above.
Cellweld Inc.
Over here at Technology Review:
Today, a broken hip usually means surgery and extensive rehab. But what if all you needed was an injection and a shorter recovery period? That’s the vision that inspires Thomas Webster, an associate professor of engineering at Brown University.
Webster has developed a nanomaterial that quickly solidifies at body temperature into a bone-like substance. This week, Brown announced a deal with medical device maker Audax Medical of Littleton, Massachusetts, to further develop the material and launch trials in animals.
The material contains the same nucleic acids as DNA, Webster says. Each molecule has two covalent bonds and links with other molecules to form a tube. Hence it’s called a “twin-base linker.” (Audax will develop it under the name Arxis.)
Well, not quite the same but getting there:
“Fascinated as he was by this exchange, Stanton could not concentrate on it. The robot now removed the splint and bandages from his arm with a scuttling of curved scalpels. This would have been bad enough in a proper hospital, but here? It then split his shirt sleeve and parted it … only, Stanton suddenly realised it wasn’t just his shirt that the machine had opened. He looked away quickly from the neatly snapped bone he could see there, and cringed at the sound of small tubes sucking away the blood that started to well up. There was movement next, but no pain, then came the reassuring drone of a bone welder. Stanton could not say he was impressed with Sylac’s bedside manner.”
Another T for Tubb.
I did enjoy this series of books when I was younger, but by the time I’d read about twenty of them and the hero Dumarest had yet to find Earth, I was getting a bit fed up. I persevered as far as you see here then finally gave up.
E. C. TUBB:
THE WINDS OF GATH
DERAI
TOYMAN
KALIN
THE JESTER AT SCAR
LALIA
TECHNOS
VERUCHIA
MAYENNE
JONDELLE
ZENYA
JACK OF SWORDS
EYE OF THE ZODIAC
ELOISE
SPECTRUM OF A FORGOTTEN SUN
HAVEN OF DARKNESS
PRISON OF NIGHT
INCIDENT AT ATH
THE QUILLIAN SECTOR
WEB OF SAND
IDUMA’S UNIVERSE
THE TERRA DATA
WORLD OF PROMISE
NECTAR OF HEAVEN
THE COMING EVENT
EARTH IS HEAVEN
MELOME AND ANGADO
Time to Stop Paying N.I.?
West Kent PCT tells us, “We are committed to delivering equality of opportunity for all service users, carers, staff and wider communities.”
And now tells us:
From this month, patients who smoke and need planned surgery will have to complete a NHS Stop Smoking course before their operation.
Patients who are clinically obese or with a BMI (body mass index) of more than 30 will also have their surgery delayed and will have to carry out a weight loss programme.
So, if you smoke or you are too fat you don’t get the surgery. It doesn’t matter that this is a service you have been forced to pay for all your life.
H/T Dick Puddlecote
Railgun
And thanks to Sean Price for sending me this one. I’ve seen this on You Tube but now apparently they’ve broken their own record. This was a 33 megajoule firing and: ‘A single megajoule is roughly equivalent to a 1-ton car traveling at 100 mph. Multiple that by 33 and you get a picture of what would happen when such a weapon hits a target.’ Ouch.
A theoretical dream for decades, the railgun is unlike any other weapon used in warfare. And it’s quite real too, as the U.S. Navy has proven in a record-setting test today in Dahlgren, VA.
Rather than relying on a explosion to fire a projectile, the technology uses an electomagnetic current to accelerate a non-explosive bullet at several times the speed of sound. The conductive projectile zips along a set of electrically charged parallel rails and out of the barrel at speeds up to Mach 7.