Timing Error

FLASH FICTION FRIDAY: SATURDAY EDITION

A day late, but here's my Flash Fiction Friday story. Stepping a bit out of my miniverse (I think) with this story.

The Possibility Engine

"Are you sure, Herr Doctor-Professor?" asked the Apprentice as he strapped the older man into an improbable contraption of tubes and widgets.

"Young man, for the last time, I am sure. I am sure of my counter intuitive calculations; I am sure of the Possibility Engine and most importantly, I am sure that I will come back with all the answers to all of the legends and mysteries of man!" said the Herr Doctor-Professor.

"Yes, but Herr Doctor-Professor, time travel is..." began the Apprentice.

BEAUTIFUL: BLACK ROCK CITY MARS, LLC

Black Rock City on Mars. Elton John in the upper left hand corner.

My new favorite wallpaper via io9.

GALACTIC BUMP AND GRIND II: HOW BABIES ARE MADE

...and other cosmic explosions.

THE FIT OVER FITNA

I managed to snag the movie Fitna off of liveleak before they took it down. As far as a movie, it’s a rather simple affair. Hardly worth thIS responses on wikipedia:

The movie was first mentioned in the Dutch media on November 27, 2007. The Dutch government almost immediately expressed great concern about the film release.[41] It made evacuation plans available to all its consulates and embassies worldwide, in case an emergency should arise in light of the forthcoming film, and it tightened security measurements around certain military installations abroad.[42]

Prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende of the Netherlands worried about possible repercussions for Dutch citizens and economic interests.[43] In response Wilders accused Balkenende of capitulating to Islam.[44]
The publication of the film was investigated by the Dutch Ministry of Justice to find out whether the release of the film could be prevented, but this could not be done.[45]

On March 6, 2008, the Dutch government raised its national terroristic threat level from the status 'limited terroristic threat' to 'substantial terroristic threat' because it fears Muslim terrorists will launch attacks against European targets, citing the film as justification.[46][47]

Personal courage, indeed.

I did get a quote of the day out the whole thing: “if you wish to choke a man, then feed him his own words.”

HAHAHAHA

Of course…

“Public transportation in the Berkeley area is limited, so rent a car.”

SPEAKING OF ESCAPE VALVES

(ED NOTE: Wrote this a couple of days ago, but booking it for posterity)

“From a base in Basra, Senior British Military Representative Lieutenant Colonel Michael Shearer told TIME that the Iraqi operation is aimed at quelling criminal activity, and that the city has never been under the "control" of militant groups.”

Shut up.

If I hear one more time about the British/Northern Ireland model, I am going to hurl. The British (politically) surrendered and declared it a peace.

“We know the outcome of the fighting in advance because we already defeated the British in the streets of Basra and forced them to withdraw to their base,” Abu Iman told The Times.

Duh.

The government moves. A nation state has got to do two things:

1. Defend itself
2. Reproduce.

Right now, violence is a commodity in Iraq. Any yahoo with a track suit and an AK-47 can get in on the business. The barriers to entry are that low. The central government has got to become the monopoly provider of violence or they fail. Gidgets launching 107mm’s from the back of pickup trucks is, shall we say, unsustainable.

Most all the rest is window dressing.

JAM/SG/Iran LLC has had a going concern on violence in Basra and Sadr City. As a result, they’ve been able to extract rents form the port and oil lines; the rents help them expand their influence.

Outcomes:

COA 1 (unlikely): JAM/SG/Iran LLC prevails.

COA 2 (moderate likelihood): Maliki prevails; high cost.

COA 3 (unknown): The Sardaukars Coalition Forces intervene on behalf of their levies and end the JAM/SG/Iran LLC product line.

Should the cease-fire collapse entirely, those gains could be in serious jeopardy, making it far more difficult to begin bringing substantial numbers of American troops home.

Concerns about US troop withdrawal timelines: parochial and unworthy.

Navel gazing Green Zone reportage: amusing.

That’s my two and a half cents.

Whatever happens down there, it will be fascinating.

SPACESHIP TWO A-BUILDING

Escape valves are nice:

SHE'LL MAKE A FINE REPUBLIC...

...given another thousand years or so: Ganvie, Benin.

I love anything that remotely reminds me of Venice.

via A Welsh View. H/T Neatorama.

BACK ON THE BLOCK

I've been a little busy at work; plus my internet connection was having a little fit.

Civilization defined: good pavement and a solid broadband connection.

SUPER SCULPEY

A long time ago in art class, I spent about a month building a character from "V" out of hot wax.

Labor intensive. This is better:

Thanks too neatorama, I've got a great introduction to super sculpey. I'm going to have to buy some.

EXCEPT FOR THE WHOLE "RESET" THING

These biobots woodbots are pretty cool:

via io9

Prototype with legs. I don't blame her for dumping them; legs are a pain in the as* to make.

ANIME OR REALITY

Followed this link from Gizmodo to the Macroswiss homepage:

They sell little spybots; but I can't be sure if they sell real products or if they're promoting a new RPG.

At least they're ISO9001 compliant. That's got to count for something.

METER HIGH MUPPETS

They were probably ergonomic and fuel efficient:

The discoverers and many other scientists think the so-called “hobbit” is its own species, Homo floresiensis. The bones, they say, resemble species much older than our own. Yet the Flores individuals lived as recently as 12,000 years ago, long after Neanderthals had perished in Europe. The find upended our smugness over the idea that Homo sapiens had remained the lone hominid on Earth since.

CULTURAL DIVIDE

This Strategy Page piece pretty much sums up the differences between the Air Force and the Army:

The army is buying a smaller version of the Predator (the Warrior) [PHOTO] and will be using NCOs and warrant officers as operators. The army is taking advantage of the fact that a UAV operator can become proficient practicing with the kind of flight simulator software you can buy in a game store. The air force does not agree with this approach, and fears unfavorable comparisons to their more complex and expensive approach to obtaining UAV operators. A lot of the bad blood between the army and air force comes down to how each service understands wars, and how they are fought. The air force has always been into new technologies, and new ways of fighting wars. The army is more about getting down and dirty and just getting the job done. The Secretary of Defense is siding with the army, and is telling the air force to get off their butts and get more Predators into the air, or else.

Air Force parochialism is a greater threat to the Air Force force structure than China, Russia or any other over the horizon bugabboo.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: START YOUR INSTALLATIONS

The first pictures for Burning Man 08 are starting to show up on-line.

This years theme will be "The American Dream." I'm interested in seeing what folks come up with; I am pretty sure Burning Man Inc burst a few blood vessels when they announced the theme.

No chance in I'll get to go to this years Burning Man; maybe next.

HOMO LUDENS

I was doing a little research on Johan Huizinga, and I came across this: Ludic Society. I'll bookmark them along side ImprovEverywhere.

I love the play element of culture.

BASTARD TOOK A SHOT AT US!!

A gamma ray burst from 7.5 billion years ago:

Analysis of GRB 080319B is just getting underway, so astronomers don't know why this burst and its afterglow were so bright. One possibility is the burst was more energetic than others, perhaps because of the mass, spin, or magnetic field of the progenitor star or its jet. Or perhaps it concentrated its energy in a narrow jet that was aimed directly at Earth.

Some comparison from the Bad Astronomy Blog:

Let me put this in perspective for you. Imagine a one megaton nuclear weapon detonating. That’s roughly 50 times the explosive yield of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Devastating.

The Sun, every second of every day of every year, gives off 100 billion times this much energy. That’s every second. A star is a terrifying object.

In the few seconds that a gamma-ray burst lasts, it packs a million million million times that much energy into its beams. In other words, for those few ticks of a clock the GRB is sending out more energy than the Sun will in its entire lifetime.

I say, we've got a sun. We ought to detonate it and shoot right back. Anything else would be cowardly.

FLASH FICTION FRIDAY

Digging around the interwebs, I'm finding that flash fiction is generally around 300 to 1000 words. I first read about flash fiction in wikipedia; that's how I settled on 2000 words as my upper limit. Given that I'm trying to cram an entire universe into my flash fiction, the more room the merrier.

But, as a change, this weeks story weighs in at a little over 700 words. (My other Flash Fiction here).

Serath

One day, out of boredom, Serath decided to go for an extended walk.

After many days, he found himself face to face with the “water's edge”, the “eggshell”, the “bow shock”, or more conventionally, the solar discontinuity. He pretended that he could see the face of Einstein, laughing at him, daring him, seducing him to take that last step.

In front of him was a frozen graveyard, littered with the desiccated corpses of untold millions of humans, in all their varieties. They had stepped through the solar discontinuity, from B-Space into Classical Space, where the rules still abided. They had ignored the warning.

FREE CHEERLEADERS

...and other war p0rn over at DVIDSHUB. Actually a pretty good site, with pictures and videos from the CENTCOM AOR. A must have for us visually oriented illiterates.

I'm surprised these guys aren't sourcing pictures from there.

STARSEEDS: RIK ALLEN

Via io9, this awesome collection of glass blown spaceships, from Rik Allen's exhibition:

UPDATE: Larger, more detailed images at Rik Allen's website.

LINEART LADIES

I draw using a brush pen; on of my challenges is the female form. Finally, a collection of line art (fashion drawings) that fit how I draw and what I want to draw. Le Parapluie:

via Boing Boing.

SEEING NIVEN

Larry Niven’s Known Space was always the hardest for me to visualize. Now I have help:

RENDEZVOUSING WITH RAMA

Good night, Arthur.

CARTOON YEEHAD!!

Binny: "If there is no check on the freedom of your words, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions," he said.

I say: “the freedom of speech is necessary to enforce rigor upon idiocy.”

KILLBOTS DOGS

All I can say is damn. Kill the noise and slap some warpaint on to scare the tribes and you have got a winner here.

Pinched from Wired.

MICRO-SUV

The Mini Crossman appeals to me on several levels. I'll be interested in seeing what they do:

"OUR COLLECTIVE IDENTITY"

Kevin Kelly:

A major theme of this present century will be the pursuit of our collective identity. We are on a search for who we are. What does it mean to be a human? Can there be more than one kind of human? In fact, what exactly is a human?

Read on. It's a theme I'm building on in my flash fiction.

I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Plastics.

GALACTIC BUMP-N-GRIND

DVD of galactic simulations now online for free.

I can not wait until I get near some decent bandwidth so I can download this puppy:

GALACTIC TRIVIA

Ten things you may or may not know about the Milky Way Galaxy:

3) It’s a cannibal.

Galaxies are big, and have lots of mass. If another, smaller galaxy passes too close by, the bigger galaxy can rip it to shreds and ingest its stars and gas.

From Bad Astronomy.

BEST WAY TO WATCH REVENGE OF THE SITH

...in four minutes or less. On you tube. Whiney little Anakin is even tolerable in this version.

And yes, I know the video is about two years old. Still good.

DEPARTMENT OF PRECRIME

Geez:

Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain's most senior police forensics expert.

Via Slashdot

MODERN TRIBALISM

Some links from John Robb. I have to go back and read the articles later.

FAREWELL, SOLDIER

A few years ago, I would have been full of snark responding to this WAPO piece penned by soon to be former Captain John Rogers. Today, not so much.

CPT Rogers is leaving the Army after four years. His reasons are as follows:

1. Personal
2. Personal.
3. The world is complex.

The Army is just not for everyone. What he describes is basically the same decision process every Soldier and NCO makes passing through the various career gates; in peace time or in war.

The selfless sacrifice required sometimes exceeds what folks are willing to bear.

It happens. I wish CPT Rogers well, and thank him for his service.

There is not much else to read into this article.

via Defense Tech.

FINAL THOUGHT: RACIAL BULLSH*T

I had a discussion with a good friend of mines, many years ago. He told me I'd be surprised the number of "whites" in Philly that hated "blacks". I told him it cuts both ways; he'd be surprised the number of "blacks" that hated "whites".

Personally, I can not stand either cohort. Racism is a bunch of structural rot that ends up harming the wielder more than it ever does the target.

Racism is a bunch of bullsh*t; something I refuse to waste my time being offended by or trying to change. If racism is your bag, then fine. Ultimately, racism says more about you than it ever will about me. The effects will fall on your own House sooner or later.

As for me and mine, we are here to enjoy life.

So saith the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders...

.

...so saith we all

SET MEME DISRUPTORS TO KILL

Senator Obama is, I believe, toast. I would imagine the V.P. slot is going to start looking attractive.

I don't know much about politics, but I'm pretty sure no matter how you split, slice and dice the demographics, you do not get to be President of these United States without the "White" (west eurasian) vote. Now, I'm pretty sure many "White" Americans (at least the non self-loathing ones) feel like they placed their political vulnerabilities through the glory hole of racial redemption only to have the Right Reverend Jeremiah Wright spring a rat trap on them*.

As far as Senator Obama's declarations? Well, the suspension of disbelief required would be same if Mrs. Michelle Obama declared that she was a pre-operative transsexual and Senator Obama swore up and down that he had no idea. After twenty odd years, you are expected to know who you are in bed with.

Finally, I do wonder if this meme is what the House Clinton meant when they said Senator Obama had not been properly "vetted". If so, then well played. Well played.

Say what you will about House Clinton; they are in it to win it.

*The Shield Season 5

FLASH FICTION FRIDAY: THE MEME

Lordy, if there is a meme out there, for anything, I am pretty sure to have missed it. Case in point, "Flash Fiction Friday". I poured those sweet words into google and came up with a plethora of fodder for my RSS reader. Cases in point:

Gareth Lyn Powell who got the ball rolling.

The Originals: Friday Flash Fictioneers.

And of course, collecting all the sci-fi flash fiction in one place so I don't have to, Futurismic.

I'm the guy who keeps discovering air; on the other hand, I do so love teh innerwebs.

FLASH FICTION FRIDAY

New story up. More of my flash fiction here.

A Letter Concerning a Matter of the Most Private Space, Part the First: In which the Beginnings of the War are Examined and Explained

My name is Beauford Battleson Billtesford and on this occasion I am writing the True Account of how I did come to declare Most Just War on my neighbor and now mortal enemy, one Nathaniel Pickford 1409. I am writing these matters down in a most solemn manner in order to present them to whatever government sees fit to aid me in securing my rights in this matter. For I did not embark upon my War easily; only after multiple and divers insults from Mr. Pickford 1409 against my most holy sovereignty did I find it my only recourse to embark upon the most severe censure of his behavior, which is to say War.

Now, the matters which led up to this War are not in dispute, even if the actual cause will be for all time bitterly contested. I firmly place the cause for War on the weak, childlike and slovenly character of Mr. Nathaniel Pickford 1409.

Mr. Nathaniel Pickford 1409 and I share a common property line. Running through this line did, and still does, run a creek of the name Screaming Lady Gulch. Mr. Pickford 1409 used this creek to cool his antiquated and dangerous light water reactor. For aesthetic reasons, I had placed my Walmart-Eskom pebble bed nuclear reactor of a most modern design along the creek.

These plants powered our various works. Mr. Pickford 1409 tried at various methods to secure himself a living from the land and I had a going concern as a Pharma. I raised various herds of milkweeds, producing through nature those vital pharmacological and life extending agents necessary to a civilized and just world. While I would never call a man working the land a wastrel, Mr. Pickford 1409 was perhaps in form as close to that appellation as I have seen. His disregard for his own works and the works of others was the kindling which inflamed our mighty War.

SPACE BLIMPS

Via io9.

MINIMUM SECURITY CONGRESS

Megan McArdle fleshes out a nice plot summary:

...but because I think maybe we should spy on our politicians, all the time. No probable cause, you say? I fling back at you Mark Twain's observation that America only has one distinct criminal class: Congress. Perhaps every member of Congress should be subject to warrantless wiretaps--except that the spies should be the American public, streaming over the web. If they need a national security exemption, of course, I think they should be able to get it one from an appropriate judicial authority. I'll even agree to a generous 24-hour delay to allow them to make their case.

In my job, I welcome management controls. Personally, I think any job involving the public trust requires management controls; we bastards should ong>want to stay honest.

More comments at Instapundit.

FLIGHT OF THE KILLER BEE

Sweet.

via IP

BLIMP P0RN

Conceptual, "house blimp":

Theme: In the future, the wealthy will be homeless.

LOLCAT BIBLE...

Lolcat Bible makes me have Android Dreams.

If you know the premise of Scalzi's excellent book, this post makes sense.

SOMEONE HUMAN

...punches in the html for CNN.

Let's see, Spitzer resigns for refusing to invade Vermont. Fallon resigns for getting caught in a burqa not his wife. I think.

Plenty to keep you busy. Me, I just notice bad links.

STEAL [ING] THAT POST

Some good tips over at io9 on writing short scifi stories. Even brings up flash fiction, my current obsession.

EVOLUTION OF HUMANITY

(Actually the western eurasian branch/moderately NSFW)

Pretty good cartoon history over at Just Whatever.

PATTERN RECOGNITION

Capt. Hines hoped to take advantage of a “fifth column” of sympathizers, already in place. Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan had been settled in large part by people from the southern states, many of whom were "Copperheads" with Confederate sympathies. While they may not have been too keen on slavery, they still felt that blacks were inferior to whites, and didn't care for the arrogance of the New England abolitionists. When war began to seem inevitable, “peace societies” started to form.

Good article on damninteresting about Civil War saboteurs.

MINIFIG MAYHEM

New too me: an entire world of mayhem based on my childhood toy staple, Legos.

Wiki entry

Brickwars

Brickarms

Halo Bricks

I mean if you're looking to ditch quotidian reality, mind as well do it in style.

VELOCITY

Add sports pilot license and you are good to go. Sweet kit plane:

CREEPY "CONVENIENCE"

Californians: free tax-prep, courtesy of the gubmint

No thanks.

Every once and awhile, I'd like to make some decisions, see my own money and such.

FLASH FICTION FRIDAYS

For an explanation of FFF, go here. Otherwise:

Weeguns World

You know what the Lower Manhattan Enclave looks like, right? You have the old Imperial Tower sticking out from that whole mess of buildings; like a glorious middle finger to the rest of the world. Now look at Lower Manhattan through a fisheye lens. Imagine dropping back, going far enough until it turns into a round ball.

That's what the Weegun dwarf planet looked like.