You may have seen their blogads on some sites, offering their "History of US Political Parties" posters. I was intrigued and followed the links and also found their "Race to the Moon" poster. Very cool.

Posted by: Ted at 04:18 AM | category: Links
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1 As a huge space race fan, I've got to say that is a COOL poster! I'm just too cheap to pay $19 for it.

Posted by: Catt at January 06, 2005 01:27 PM (Hg5ZI)

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Red, over at The Sheila Variations, points the way to an article that asks:

"WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"

This very question was asked of 100 (in her words) "big brainiac-types" and they provided some truly thought-provoking answers and visions.

Right off the top of my head, I believe you should head over to The Sheila Variations and read her take on it, and then follow her link to the actual article. Cool stuff.

Immediate Update: Jay of Sophont has his take posted as well, including this dandy little snippet:

I believe in science. Unlike mathematical theorems, scientific results can't be proved.They can only be tested again and again, until only a fool would not believe them.

I cannot prove that electrons exist, but I believe fervently in their existence. And if you don't believe in them, I have a high voltage cattle prod I'm willing to apply as an argument on their behalf. Electrons speak for themselves.

That's a quote from Seth Lloyd, a Quantum Mechanical Engineer from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Posted by: Ted at 12:10 PM | category: Links
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And I tell ya, I gotta agree. Incidentally, my sides hurt from laughing as I read it.

Thanks to Derek for pointing that one out. Feel better, guy.

Posted by: Ted at 12:07 PM | category: Links
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Rob at Left & Right notes that the US Navy ship Bonhomme Richard is very much in the thick of the tsunami relief effort. He also reminds us that this is the ship that nitwit Pablo Paredes was assigned to. You may recall him as the asshat who refused to report to his ship as a protest against the Iraq war.

What's the protest now, Pablo? Is Chimpy McShrub Co and his cronies at Halliburton invading Indonesia in an act of illegal humanitarian aid?

Because of your actions, there is one less person providing relief to the area.

Right on, Rob!

Moving along to other naval news, the folks at Silent Running posted a little tidbit about the urgent need for fresh water in the devastated regions, and wouldn't you know it, naval ships happen to be pretty damned good at generating fresh water - up to one half million gallons per day from a Nimitz class carrier alone (we have two carrier groups in the region I believe).

I'd consider that a dual-use weapons platform, eh?

The Indian navy is also pitching in in a big way:

The Indian Navy Tuesday cleared Sri Lanka's key Galle port after an extensive operation to remove sunken vessels there as part of the largest peacetime initiative mounted by the country's armed forces post tsunami.

Crews of the Indian ships have set up field kitchens and medical aid stations, passed out supplies, and an Indian hospital ship is anchored at one location to provide additional medical assistance. A second hospital ship is enroute.

Australian naval aviation isn't just working harder, they're working smarter:

"The Iroquois [helicopter] is probably the quickest capability that we can deploy forward," he said.

"It's got a light footprint, so it doesn't take quite as much equipment and personnel to get it moving quickly.

"So we found that the Iroquois was something that we could put on at very short notice."

But Australia had more modern Black Hawk helicopters and heavy lift Chinooks on standby to send to Banda Aceh if they were required, he said.

"Obviously they could do significantly more, but the early assessment that we've made here is that there is a significant amount of other helicopters here already," Lt-Col Steel said.

He said the RAAF had moved enough spare parts for the Iroquois to remain in Aceh for up to three months, while ground crews had been told to expect a stay of at least a month.

The French are assisting as well, sending military ships to Sumatra in coordination with other relief efforts:

The Jeanne d'Arc, a ship carrying six helicopters and two units of engineers, and the Georges Leygues, a frigate, were to leave Djibouti Tuesday, the defence ministry said.

The Jeanne d'Arc was transporting 6,000 food rations, 800 tonnes of water and water treatment equipment, five tonnes of medicine and field medical posts, it said.

I've just touched on what's out there, and it just kinda flowed that this was naval oriented. I also heard this morning that the donations to the Red Cross have already matched what was collected for last year's hurricane relief in Florida. There's hope for this ol' world, because it's full of people like these who help in whatever way they can.

*Ripple Fire is the process of launching several rockets in rapid succession. The military version features big booms at the receiving end.

Posted by: Ted at 11:59 AM | category: Links
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Sadie is a new Munuvian, and her place is at Fistful of Fortnights. Permalink is over on the right. Yay!

Weaselteeth is another new Munuvian. Again, Yay! (that's the traditional Munuvian greeting, ya know)

Same for Naked Villiany, except that he's not a Munuvian, and his permalink is farther down on the right with the other non-Munuvian bloggers. Give us time, we're assimilating as fast as we can.

Posted by: Ted at 06:06 AM | category: Links
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A beautiful selection of the best space photos of 2004, in various sizes to fit your monitor.

Posted by: Ted at 04:51 AM | category: Links
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Artist Kelly Freas passed away today at age 82 of natural causes.

In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Freas illustrated the covers or the pages of books by writers including Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, A.E. Van Vogt, Poul Anderson and Frederik Pohl.

I knew Kelly Freas best from his illustrations in Analog, the Science Fiction magazine, but he was probably better known for his work that graced the covers of Mad Magazine for many years.

Beginning in the 1950s, he spent seven years as the main cover artist of Mad Magazine, creating stylishly detailed portraits and helping to make famous Alfred E. Newman, the freckled, front-tooth-deprived purveyor of the phrase, "What? Me Worry?"

He also did other work including an album cover for Queen and the original Skylab patch design for NASA.

Update: De Doc has a nice post up about the passing of this artistic giant.

Posted by: Ted at 04:30 PM | category: Links
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You may have seen this on 60 Minutes last night, during a piece they were doing on Google. There's also been a fair amount of buzz on the 'net about this, but just in case you weren't aware...

Go to the Google page and type in "books about xyz", where xyz is anything you want (for instance, I tried "stonehenge" and then "submarines"). When your search results are returned, at or near the top will be a listing marked by several colorful books. These are links to online copies of books. But that's just surface cool, because this feature goes much farther.

Click on a listed book link, and you'll see the scanned pages of the book. But over on the left side is a search box. Yepper, the entire text of the books are searchable! How cool is that?

Go play and be amazed. Thank you Al Gore, for making this all possible.

Posted by: Ted at 12:15 PM | category: Links
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1 Wow! I had no idea! Thanks for passing that on!!! I only hope they have Max Born's Relativity 'cause I'm sick of checking iy out of the library every six months.

Posted by: Tuning Spork at January 04, 2005 09:21 PM (dqsg4)

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I was thinking about making this a series, but I'm not sure I have the time to do it up right. At least for now, I'll post the story and link, and I might revisit later.

In the 1950's, Burdick presented himself and his drawings to a publisher who was fascinated by them and wanted to read the stories that the pictures illustrated. Burdick promised to return the next day with those stories but did not keep the appointment. The publisher tried for many years to find the
man but was never able to discover who Burdick was or what had happened to him.

Then, in the '80s, the publisher showed the images to an author friend -- hence the book, published in 1984.

When the author received the pictures from the publisher, he was also given a box containing dozens of stories written over the years by the publisher's children and their friends. He read and found all of them remarkable -- some bizarre, some funny, some downright scary -- the makings of another great book.

Since Burdick never did return as promised, you'll have to write your own stories. You have a jump start, as Harris Burdick had written a title and caption for each picture.

-- from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg

Chris Van Allsburg has written and illustrated other children's books, with a similar technique so the question becomes, was there really a Harris Burdick?

And does it matter?

This looks ideal for exercising the creative writer inside you or for firing up a child's imagination. Even a child too young to write can be encouraged to tell a story based on the picture.

This nifty site has all of the mysterious illustrations and more links to some of the creative writing submitted by students as inspired by the pictures.

As a teaser, I've included the first picture, complete with title and caption in the extended entry.

If you'd care to, write a story based on it and link back to this post, or send me the link and I'll include it. If the response is favorable, maybe we'll do more of them. I'd especially love to hear the tales from the little ones. Those can be magic. more...

Posted by: Ted at 05:38 AM | category: Links
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Need advice? Ann Landers too tame and Dear Dotti too conventional? Try this column. The questions seem rather typical:

"Jane" and I have been in the same sorority for two years, and we were best friends from the time we met at freshman orientation. Last week I found Jane in bed with my fiance "John." I have been deeply hurt and don't know what to do. I can't break my engagement with John or he'll take his credit card back. And I just couldn't stand to look at Jane at the mixer last night. Do you think we should all go to some sort of counseling?

What a bunch of touchy-feeling crap. You need a dose of Klingon wisdom (edited for brevity):

The first thing you will need is a spear. If you don't have a conventional spear, any long sharpened wood will do. Now, go to Jane's house... Leaving her writhing body impaled on her front lawn as a warning to others might be a nice touch.

Since we're talking Klingon (not really, I'm a fan of the original series, but far from a trekkie), my favorite book from the original series is called The Final Reflection. Besides an early alternative view of the Klingon Empire (much different than as realized during the many incarnations of the Star Trek universe), the book revolves around the Klingon equivalent to human chess, known as Klin Zha. The glimpses of the game in the book are fascinating and not surprisingly have been formalized and expanded by trekkies. This site has the rules and many variations here, including this PDA version that I'll be downloading and testing just for fun.

But I digress (yeah, like I have a point). The best of the original Star Trek books (to my mind) were the ones where the focus was primarily on the alien cultures. Besides the prologue and epilogue, The Final Reflection told a great story without Kirk and the Enterprise. Only one regular makes an actual (and brief) appearance, and another is mentioned in passing. Other than that, it's all Klingon. It's very refreshing to see them as the good guys for a change. Big fun.

Another title focusing on the Klingons is Pawns and Symbols. The Enterprise crew is part of this tale, but only in a peripheral role. Once again you see the people behind the ridged foreheads and get to know the culture as more than the warriors usually depicted on television.

Coming from the other side of the sector (quadrant? nuetral zone? whatever.), is a story from deep within the Romulan Empire - The Romulan Way. Lots of outrageous SciFi action and adventure and a look inside a proud and haughty culture.

So there ya go, three of the better Star Trek books. Recommended by Rocket Jones.

Kai Kassai Klingon!

Posted by: Ted at 05:06 PM | category: Links
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1 Love that site!
But, I wonder what voice the author has in mind.

At first I read in a Wharf voice, but it wasn't working for most of the posts. Then I tried Kahless, which, again, was hit and miss.

Then I settled on Kruge. Brilliant!

The only Star Trek novel I ever read was The Vulcan Academy Murders. While the Enterprise crew were in it (mainly Spock), they were very much in the background. A great presentation of Vulcan academia with many (strike)cool(/strike) fascinating "Surakisms".

Posted by: Tuning Spork at January 02, 2005 08:33 PM (EI8+J)

2 Oh man, The Romulan Way was one of my most favorite books! I loved the stories about the original race and how they eventually split, one group adopting extreme discipline of the emotions--and became the Vulcans--while the other embraced their extreme passions--and became the Romulans.

I thought I'd tossed away my Trekkie-ness when I hit my 20's, but I guess you never really lose it after all, eh? ;-)

--TwoDragons

Posted by: Denita TwoDragons at January 02, 2005 09:25 PM (l3AWL)

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