Part-time prevaricator
For the first time in my lifetime, there are living things on the moon.
Consider: Apollo 17, the last crewed mission to the moon, left the lunar surface in December 1972. (I was born the next year.)
Header image: Gene Cernan in the Lunar Rover. Taken by NASA, and in the public domain.
It’s got a nice ring to it.
Congratulations to William Gibson, one of my favourite authors, on the announcement that he has been named the latest Damon Knight Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
The Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award recognizes “lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy.” Gibson joins the Grand Master ranks alongside such legends as C. J. Cherryh, Peter S. Beagle, Ursula K. Le Guin, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Joe Haldeman. The award will be presented at the 54th Annual Nebula Conference and Awards Ceremony in Woodland Hills, CA, May 16th-19th, 2019.
Via Tor.com, here’s the official announcement.
Header photo by Nikki Tysoe, used under a CC-BY license.
I’ve been a Flickr member since almost its inception. I signed up sometime in 2004. I’ve been there through it all, and mostly enjoyed my time.
But when the new owners (ie, SmugMug) tell me they’re going to start deleting my photos if I don’t pony up for a Pro account, well, that’s it. I’m out.
Bad move, SmugMug.
(Aside to Mr. Pensato: I’ve been doing a bit more work on Blinky.)
PS: I’m in the process of moving my photos off Flickr and onto my own personal site (ie, this one). So I’m not going to lose sleep over the whole “your photos are getting deleted” thing. Let me know if you’re interested in the simple WordPress plugin I’ve built in order to pull my photos.
In my banned books mug.
As it heats up, the black REDACTION bars fade, revealing the titles of books that have been banned and challenged through the years.
It may be -35°C outside but at least the sky is a lovely shade of blue.
Things I didn’t expect to see in Victoria Avenue the morning after a heavy snowfall the week before Xmas: this guy.
Judo Canada has ratified it, so it’s official: I have my sandan rank. In English, I have my 3rd degree black belt in judo.
For this one, I had to learn (or perhaps re-learn is a better way to put it) the katame-no-kata, aka the groundwork kata. I quite like it, and hope to sharpen it up for possible competition.
Thanks to all who have supported me along the way.
Is Die Hard the best Christmas movie? I dunno, I’ve always leaned toward The Nightmare Before Christmas*, myself.
But this article makes a compelling point for others, too. I just re-watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in the summertime, during my writing retreat. (How is that five months ago already? Man, time flies.)
[M]ost of his films [have a] fairy-tale like sheen, similar to what makes Die Hard so successful. And making it Christmas in L.A. (which the majority of his films do), offers a different sensibility to the use of the holiday on film.
—Emily Asher-Perrin, Die Hard is Great, but Shane Black is the King of Christmas Explosions
* Oh who am I kidding? Nightmare is second; A Charlie Brown Christmas is first, even if it’s only about half an hour long.
A fascinating article on the Planetary Society website: Whose Stars? Our heritage of Arabian astronomy:
Greco-Mesopotamian constellation figures bear Latin names. Their brightest stars are designated with letters of the Greek alphabet, yet most of them bear proper names that derive from Arabic. Even so, many of these star names are Arabic descriptions of Greek constellation figures, not Arabian ones.
Learn more about the Arabian star and constellation names, like, for instance, ath-Thuraya (aka the Pleiades) and her Hands (one amputated, one henna-dyed), Aldebaran (the Follower), al-Jawza’ and the Shi’ra sisters, and more.
It’s fascinating, and at least part of the reason I’m posting this is to bookmark the article for later re-reading. I think it might be a useful thing for a science-fiction writer to know about.
Header image: Pleiades (or I guess ath-Thuraya), taken by me in 2015.