Much as I liked the show, this is about the actual planet. As someone who writes about Mars, I’ve got kind of a vested interest–then again, as a resident of Earth I’ve got kind of a vested interest anyway. Assuming we don’t manage to wipe ourselves out (a prospect which, though it will always remain a possibility, seems increasingly unlikely) humans are eventually going to have to go to Mars.
Going to Mars presents a number of problems for us, both in transit and in the ways Mars is inhospitable (Mary Roach, author of Stiff, has a great new book on the subject). Mars, for example, has weather which will make some of the lessons we learn from a Lunar colony hard to cross-apply. But it does have soil, which Luna doesn’t. Either way, if we’re gonna live there a long time, it’s gonna have to get an oxygen atmosphere and an ecosystem.
Terraforming–big word for a big operation. How would we even begin to do it?
Turns out, Charles Darwin was at the back of the world’s first experiment in terraforming. With the help of the Royal Navy, he created an artificial ecosystem. New Scientist has a great article on it.
Last night’s post about the exciting new developments in fringe cosmology provoked some interesting twitter comments. Seems some of the language in the article I linked to (particularly at the end, where it talks about vested interest) reminded some of you of denialist language from one or another favorite science/history denial camps.
Specifically, the word “conspiracy” came up a few times, as in “Do they really expect us to believe scientists are in a conspiracy about the Big Bang?”
So why would I, someone who publicly fancies himself a fairly rational fellow, post something that smacked of conspiracy thinking and call it “interesting?” Because I think there’s a difference between a conspiracy and a paradigm, and it starts with understanding how scientific theories work.
Scientific Theories
In common parlance we use “theory” in the same kind of way Spock uses it on Star Trek: i.e. as an idea that gets troublesome problems out of your hair. For example, “I have a theory, Captain: in order to save the Enterprise, you must seduce the alien’s girlfriend” is not a theory, it’s a policy recommendation designed to remove something troublesome (i.e. Kirk) from the speaker’s (i.e. Spock’s) immediate view, perhaps permanently (i.e. when the phaser-weilding alien catches Kirk boinking the girlfriend).
Big Bang contrarians are a dime a dozen, from the crackpots to the respected physicists, like Halton Arp, who like to pick nits at the existing paradigm but don’t have a coherent alternate theory to advance. They’re usually good for an afternoon’s entertainment, but little more than that.
Sometimes, though, the exciting stuff happens in the sciences. When the incentive system works, the new kids on the block go gunning for the old theories–you make your name by going after the Fastest Gun In The West. With all the fun stuff going on recently with Dark Matter and Dark Energy playing havoc with Inflationary Cosmology, a lot of people have been waiting for the other shoe to drop: at some point, some young and hungry cosmologists are going to try like hell to blow up the Big Bang.
Well, it happened. Whether it will prove a better model, it’s too early to tell. But it is a hell of an audacious theory-in-progress, and lots of fun to read about, so I thought I’d share it with all of you. Enjoy!
If you want the background for this post, check The Binge post for a description of my recent unintentional astronomical word count adventure. Short version: I wrote one hundred twenty three thousand words in fifty days. Yow.
So, you may ask, what did I learn from writing 123k words in 50 days?
Plenty.
What do you need to know if you’re gonna try for this kind of marathon?
Try these on for size:
First, as you can read in my post about the health problems I developed as a result of crappy Microsoft workmanship, ergonomics are everything. You can actually seriously damage your arms, hands, and wrists if you don’t move around regularly, have a comfortable keyboard, and pay attention to your body. Being in a groove is no excuse.
Second, food. I tried a variety of different styles of eating throughout the ordeal, mostly motivated by whatever I could think to put in the kitchen that week. What I wound up discovering surprised me. I expected to want junk food—pre-prepared high calorie, high density, high-protein, ultra-tasty nibbles supplemented with fruits and finger-friendly vegetables. However, it turned out that I gravitated toward made-from-scratch fare. I actually learned to make wood-oven pizza, sourdough from scratch, knishes, and a few other things during this time, and not just because they were tasty. It’s because it gave me something else to do. …read full article…
By the time I finish writing this article, I’ll have written 123,000 words in fifty days. The output constitutes two short-book-length works (one novel, one reference work), nine blog posts, two commissioned articles, and some odds and ends of work on another novel.
For the first half of the duration, I did it by accident. So, I thought it might be worth something to those of you who write or want to if I documented the experience. …read full article…
Call for submissions on a new blog series, open to all authors and podcasters:
Most of us have moments in films or books that put us in tears, and for a lot of people, those moments are pretty predictable. Tell someone Old Yeller made owning a dog painful for you when you were a kid, and everyone understands.
But sometimes, it’s the unexpected moments that get you. Reach up and bite you out of nowhere in an otherwise frivolous film or book that’s not meant to do anything other than thrill or amuse you. I’ve had a few of these, and I bet a bunch of you have too.
So here’s what I want to do: I’d like those of you with something to pimp–a book release, a podcast, an album, a transmedia project–to send me your story. Give me a thousand words or so (or less) on the most unlikely movie, story, or song that made you cry, and what it taught you about your own preferred artform, if anything. Include a short bio with links to your work. I’ll put the stories up as guest blog posts, and hopefully we can generate more traffic for your projects while giving our audiences a unique glimpse into our bizarre creative processes.
So, with any luck, this announcement will post to Twitter and Facebook, have at the bottom a “share this on social media sites,” and come up handsomely on mobile phones. Step one of prepping the site for this September’s big announcements is now accomplished!
After far too long away, we have new episodes coming your way… shortly. First, though, we need to cast a few new voices. Visit the casting call page for a list of the new characters and brief descriptions, and contact casting@jdsawyer.net if you would be interested.
A few months back, after grinding my eight-year-old generic ergo keyboard into the ground I found myself in need of a new ergonomic keyboard. The keyboard failed on a deadline, so I had little choice but to do that thing you’re not supposed to do: shop for computer equipment at Best Buy.
I’ve been writing and hacking since the age of four, though I don’t hack much anymore, so I need an ergo keyboard to keep my wrists functioning properly. The only ergo on offer was the Microsoft Natural Pro 4000, so I paid through the nose for it ($60) and took it home.
It looked gorgeous. The spacebar was sticky as if the tolerances were a little too close, but I figured it would work out. Unfortunately, I never got to see if it would–the keyboard failed in about sixty days.
A return trip to Best Buy, and some carefully measured profanity coupled with very complimentary sweet talk, got me a new one of the same model for free. …read full article…
Most of this series concentrates on general contract principles. This week’s entry is a little different. It’s devoted solely to the creative industries (businesses like films, music, books, theater, etc. which depend on artists for their grist), and I’m posting it now rather than later because recent events have thrust it to the center of my attention. If you’re in a creative industry, this one’s for you.
It may surprise you to learn that Babylon 5 has never turned a profit. Not a cent. In fact, according to an internet post earlier this year by creator J. Michael Straczynski, his most recent royalty statement informed him that the entire franchise is still $80m in debt. For perspective, all 5 seasons, plus 5 movies, plus the spinoff series, plus the follow-up Lost Tales special, cost under $200m to produce in aggregate. The franchise’s total revenues now totals in excess of $1.2b.
And, according to Warner Brothers, it’s never made a profit. Not a cent. …read full article…
For those of you waiting on the next Principles of Contracts or Balticon Adventure post, your patience will soon be rewarded. Things here have been hopping–between article deadlines, a couple new contracts to hash out, and having written a new book in the last three weeks, July has been completely packed.
Some of the contract stuff has reminded me of a topic that I’m going to bump to the front. The next post in the Contracts series will deal with defending yourself against creative bookkeeping, which is a concept that’s starting to leak from Hollywood into the New Media and Publishing worlds.
Since I’ve been doing a blog series on the Principles of Contracts, I have to include this bit of news about the biggest, ugliest case of a handshake deal I’ve seen in quite some time. Seems that the publishers and authors of The Shack never really figured out who owned what, and now they’re out over a million bucks in royalties as the lawsuits fly. Take a read here for the whole ugly story, and remember: Contracts Matter.
All business deals are based on trust, and it’s a trust backed up by a trustworthy legal system. Without trustworthy courts, high trust between people in a culture, and an environment characterized by trust and reciprocity, business is impossible.
“Trustworthy! Dan, what country are you living in?” I hear some of you cry. “The American courts are kangaroo affairs stripping us of our civil rights, legislating from the bench, is a racist, corrupt tool of criminal violence against the underclasses, and is nothing more than a puppet of the special interests and elites in this country.” I hear some of you say that (every day, all around the blogosphere), but I also can’t help but notice that you’re reading a blog series about best practices for contracts, and that upwards of 80% of you reading it live, work, and do business in the United States. This isn’t a coincidence.
A well-functioning economy works because the trust quotient is high, and the reason isn’t too difficult to see: If I can’t trust you to live up to your end of the deal, and you can’t trust me to live up to mine, then why in the world would we do business together?
Circlet Press’s new anthology, Apocalypse Sex, is now available on Amazon and Smashwords. It contains a new and improved version my novelette Buried Alive In The Blues, which some of you may remember from its appearance on Erotica A La Carte last year. Now you can take it anywhere with you on your handy-dandy e-reader!
Don’t delay — read for yourself the story of the woman who loved the Blues so much that, when the world ended, it was the only thing she still wanted.
Me? I think I’m going to go celebrate. Where is that Leadbelly album?
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.” Matthew 7:13, NIV
Seldom, if ever, have the words above been truer than when negotiation a contract. In a contract, the narrower your wording, the better off you are. Why? Because (with a few exceptions which I’ll get to later) you cannot be obligated to actions that are not specified in the contract – and neither can the other party.
As we learned in The Third Cousins Rule, a well-written contract will define terms to minimize confusion.
This is its chief corollary: It’s not enough to define your terms, you must also be careful to use the correct terms. Doing so is one of the key things that makes a difference between an artist who makes a living off her work, and one who perpetually gets taken for granted. …read full article…
