Pete Schultz, Deep Impact scientist: "This city-sized object is floating around in a vacuum. The only time it gets bothered is when the sun cooks it a little or someone slams an 820-pound wakeup call at it at 23,000 miles per hour."
This choice example of "tough-guy" science talk was identified by Bruce Sterling at Beyond the Beyond. I wonder if Sterling realizes that scientific tough-talk is much more pervasive than it has any right to be. After all, JPL press statements about the Mars rovers are chock-full of unseemly references to "monster trucks."
An "820-pound wakeup call?" The only one here in need of a wakeup call is Pete, who's functioning under the tragic misconception that he isn't a dork.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Military's Energy-Beam Weapons Delayed
"A separate branch of directed-energy research involves bigger, badder beams: lasers that could obliterate targets tens of miles away from ships or planes. Such a strike would be so surgical that, as some designers put it at a recent conference here, the military could plausibly deny responsibility."
What? The military denying responsibility? They'd never do such a thing!
While we're playing Buck Rogers, why not apply some of this directed energy research to studying power satellites? For example, an orbiting solar farm could beam microwaves to ground-based stations, where their energy could be used to cleanly power entire cities.
Call me crazy, but this strikes me as a worthy goal that just might save more lives than all the bad-ass death-rays in the world.
"A separate branch of directed-energy research involves bigger, badder beams: lasers that could obliterate targets tens of miles away from ships or planes. Such a strike would be so surgical that, as some designers put it at a recent conference here, the military could plausibly deny responsibility."
What? The military denying responsibility? They'd never do such a thing!
While we're playing Buck Rogers, why not apply some of this directed energy research to studying power satellites? For example, an orbiting solar farm could beam microwaves to ground-based stations, where their energy could be used to cleanly power entire cities.
Call me crazy, but this strikes me as a worthy goal that just might save more lives than all the bad-ass death-rays in the world.
Saturday, July 09, 2005
African Gray Parrot Grasps Zero Concept
"Although his brain is the size of a walnut, scientists say Alex's ability to understand the concept of zero is amazing, as humans do not typically grasp it until the age of 3 or 4.
"According to Irene Pepperburg, who led the reasearch, Alex possesses a zero-like concept, which although different to ours, still demonstrates his ability to understand an absence of quantity."
"Although his brain is the size of a walnut, scientists say Alex's ability to understand the concept of zero is amazing, as humans do not typically grasp it until the age of 3 or 4.
"According to Irene Pepperburg, who led the reasearch, Alex possesses a zero-like concept, which although different to ours, still demonstrates his ability to understand an absence of quantity."
UFO Magazine's Mars issue is finally out, featuring a color spread about the Cydonian Imperative and "After the Martian Apocalypse." The article calls me a "Cydonian cyberpunk poet," which I think is a good thing.
Better still, the cover has a picture of Richard Hoagland in a most interesting suit.
Better still, the cover has a picture of Richard Hoagland in a most interesting suit.
Friday, July 08, 2005
Outback hunt for origins of life
"'These rocks are the best-preserved old rocks anywhere on Earth's surface,' Dr Lindsay said. 'They give us perhaps our best chance of finding early evidence for life or the conditions that led to life.'
"Last week at a workshop in Perth, Japanese geologist Kenichiro Sugitani of Nagoya University, described 3.3 billion-year-old 'probable microfossils' from the Pilbara that may provide that evidence.
"Dr Sugitani is working with Australian scientists such as Malcolm Walter to tease out the structures' geochemistry and determine if they are a link between life and non-life."
NASA confirms existence of liquid water on the Earth's surface 4 billion years ago
"'NASA is interested in how early the Earth had abundant liquid water. If oceans form early in a planet's history, then so can life,' said Carl Pilcher, senior scientist for astrobiology at NASA Headquarters, Washington. 'Learning how early oceans formed on Earth will help us understand where else oceans and perhaps even life may have formed in this solar system and in planetary systems around other stars.'"
"'These rocks are the best-preserved old rocks anywhere on Earth's surface,' Dr Lindsay said. 'They give us perhaps our best chance of finding early evidence for life or the conditions that led to life.'
"Last week at a workshop in Perth, Japanese geologist Kenichiro Sugitani of Nagoya University, described 3.3 billion-year-old 'probable microfossils' from the Pilbara that may provide that evidence.
"Dr Sugitani is working with Australian scientists such as Malcolm Walter to tease out the structures' geochemistry and determine if they are a link between life and non-life."
NASA confirms existence of liquid water on the Earth's surface 4 billion years ago
"'NASA is interested in how early the Earth had abundant liquid water. If oceans form early in a planet's history, then so can life,' said Carl Pilcher, senior scientist for astrobiology at NASA Headquarters, Washington. 'Learning how early oceans formed on Earth will help us understand where else oceans and perhaps even life may have formed in this solar system and in planetary systems around other stars.'"
Just purchased: "Idlewild" by Nick Sagan. (That's right -- Carl Sagan's son is writing critically acclaimed postcyberpunk novels.)
Teleporting UFOs in the hallowed, staunchly Shostakian pages of Space.com!
Teleportation: Express Lane Space Travel
"If indeed we are to become a space teleporting civilization, what about other advanced civilizations circling distant stars? Perhaps they have already mastered mass transportation via teleportation?
"One might even be drawn to consider that mode of travel in connection with purported UFO visitation of Earth.
"'Any strange comings and goings are candidates for teleportation, although you would obviously have to eliminate all mundane explanations first," Darling responded. "According to reports, some UFOs do appear and disappear quite abruptly, which would fit in with the basic idea of teleportation,' he said.
[. . .]
"'Extraterrestrial intelligence that is thousands or millions of years ahead of us will certainly be teleportation experts,' Darling advised, 'if the technology can be implemented at the macroscopic biological level.'"
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Robot Wisdom on the Street
"Five years later, in the San Francisco afternoon, it's hard to reconcile these energetic and intellectually omnivorous posts with the anxious, awkward man on the sidewalk. Speaking quietly in sentences as short as his blog entries, Barger seems ready to implode. It turns out he has good reasons: Homeless and broke at age 53, he allowed the domain registration for robotwisdom.com to lapse and can't afford to re-up it." (Via Beyond the Beyond.)
"Five years later, in the San Francisco afternoon, it's hard to reconcile these energetic and intellectually omnivorous posts with the anxious, awkward man on the sidewalk. Speaking quietly in sentences as short as his blog entries, Barger seems ready to implode. It turns out he has good reasons: Homeless and broke at age 53, he allowed the domain registration for robotwisdom.com to lapse and can't afford to re-up it." (Via Beyond the Beyond.)
Having a blog, I suppose I'm obligated to say something about the terrorist attack in Britain.
Here's what I wrote about terrorism on April 9, 2003:
"We have disturbed the hive. We have shaken it, beaten it with sticks, poked it until its sides are dripping and buzzing with pure insect menace.
"When the next wave of terrorist strikes hits, there won't be enough paper for the 'God Bless America' bumper stickers we'll be needing."
Here's what I wrote about terrorism on April 9, 2003:
"We have disturbed the hive. We have shaken it, beaten it with sticks, poked it until its sides are dripping and buzzing with pure insect menace.
"When the next wave of terrorist strikes hits, there won't be enough paper for the 'God Bless America' bumper stickers we'll be needing."
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
I've been adding relevant blogs to the sidebar located on the right-hand side of your screen.
Three particularly good ones, to my mind, are Kyle King's UFO Reflections, which takes a thoughtful approach to the UFO question, Fleeting-Improvised-Man (in the author's words, "the tale of the War against the malevolent warp entities of the Reflective Sphere"), and Variable Gravitas Content.
Good stuff. Take a look.
Three particularly good ones, to my mind, are Kyle King's UFO Reflections, which takes a thoughtful approach to the UFO question, Fleeting-Improvised-Man (in the author's words, "the tale of the War against the malevolent warp entities of the Reflective Sphere"), and Variable Gravitas Content.
Good stuff. Take a look.
I borrowed the following "book meme" from Jason (Busy, Busy, Busy).
Number of books I own:
Probably at least a thousand, but not having counted them I can't be certain.
Last book bought:
"Newton's Wake" by Ken MacLeod. I think.
Last book read:
"Master of Space and Time" by Rudy Rucker.
Currently reading:
"Singularity Sky" by Charles Stross, "The Mysterious Valley" by Christopher O'Brien and "Angels and Aliens" by Keith Thompson.
Five books that mean a lot to me:
"Terraplane" by Jack Womack, "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka, "Perdido Street Station" by China Mieville," "1984" by George Orwell, and "Nova Express" by William S. Burroughs.
Number of books I own:
Probably at least a thousand, but not having counted them I can't be certain.
Last book bought:
"Newton's Wake" by Ken MacLeod. I think.
Last book read:
"Master of Space and Time" by Rudy Rucker.
Currently reading:
"Singularity Sky" by Charles Stross, "The Mysterious Valley" by Christopher O'Brien and "Angels and Aliens" by Keith Thompson.
Five books that mean a lot to me:
"Terraplane" by Jack Womack, "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka, "Perdido Street Station" by China Mieville," "1984" by George Orwell, and "Nova Express" by William S. Burroughs.
The girl who woke up on a crane
"Irshaad Ebrahim, of the London Sleep Centre, was not surprised by the incident. He said: 'I treat people who have driven cars, ridden horses and even attempted to fly a helicopter. However, this is one of the more unusual cases I've come across. Sleepwalking is nothing to do with dreaming because it occurs in a non-dreaming sleep state.'" (Via The Anomalist.)
"Irshaad Ebrahim, of the London Sleep Centre, was not surprised by the incident. He said: 'I treat people who have driven cars, ridden horses and even attempted to fly a helicopter. However, this is one of the more unusual cases I've come across. Sleepwalking is nothing to do with dreaming because it occurs in a non-dreaming sleep state.'" (Via The Anomalist.)
UFO fan Chris digs up real-life X-Files
"The sightings were taken so seriously that high-level consultations were carried out to see if it could have been top-secret trials of American stealth aircraft."
If I encounter the term "real-life X-Files" one more time I'm going to kill somebody.
"The sightings were taken so seriously that high-level consultations were carried out to see if it could have been top-secret trials of American stealth aircraft."
If I encounter the term "real-life X-Files" one more time I'm going to kill somebody.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Biotech Firms Fight Pollution With Plants
"On the site of a former hat factory in Danbury, Conn., a stand of genetically altered cottonwood trees sucks mercury from the contaminated soil.
"Across the continent in California, researchers use transgenic Indian mustard plants to soak up dangerously high selenium deposits caused by irrigation of the nation's bread basket.
"Still others are engineering trees to retain more carbon and thus combat global warming.
"The gene jockeys conducting these exotic experiments envision a future in which plants can be used as an inexpensive, safer and more effective way of disposing of pollution."
"On the site of a former hat factory in Danbury, Conn., a stand of genetically altered cottonwood trees sucks mercury from the contaminated soil.
"Across the continent in California, researchers use transgenic Indian mustard plants to soak up dangerously high selenium deposits caused by irrigation of the nation's bread basket.
"Still others are engineering trees to retain more carbon and thus combat global warming.
"The gene jockeys conducting these exotic experiments envision a future in which plants can be used as an inexpensive, safer and more effective way of disposing of pollution."
Jeez . . . I got so caught up in my Shaver-esque rant about aliens living among us that I forgot to mention the point that immediately struck me about "The Hair of the Alien": DNA analysis shows that it's human, although with some apparent anomalies.
So if by some long shot the hair is indeed an authentic sample of "alien" tissue, it proves that at least one of our visitors is very closely related to us. Indeed, if DNA analysis is necessary to distinguish an alleged "Nordic" from a human, our cities could be fairly teeming with "aliens" (or their hybrid offspring) and we'd never suspect.
(This is essentially the scenario put forth in David Jacobs' "The Threat," foreshadowed by the fictional vampires of Whitley Strieber's "The Hunger.")
So if by some long shot the hair is indeed an authentic sample of "alien" tissue, it proves that at least one of our visitors is very closely related to us. Indeed, if DNA analysis is necessary to distinguish an alleged "Nordic" from a human, our cities could be fairly teeming with "aliens" (or their hybrid offspring) and we'd never suspect.
(This is essentially the scenario put forth in David Jacobs' "The Threat," foreshadowed by the fictional vampires of Whitley Strieber's "The Hunger.")
Are we sharing the planet with "aliens"?
There's a new book called "The Hair of the Alien" that supposedly offers forensic evidence of nonhuman visitation. The "alien" in question is a so-called "Nordic" -- one of the tall, blond humanoids encountered working alongside the archetypical "Grays" in many abduction narratives.
Perusing the author's blog, I found an illustration showing the supposed ET. Instead of fitting the Nordic stereotype, she strongly reminds me of descriptions of human/Gray transgenic hybrids (a subject explored in detail in Budd Hopkins' 1987 book "Intruders" and more recently in "Sight Unseen," coauthored with Carol Rainey).
The UFO mythos is full of strangely mannered beings that seem like crosses between homo sapiens and big-headed "Grays." One of my favorite accounts is the now-classic account of Antonio Villas-Boas, who supposedly encountered a gorgeous -- if unusual -- woman aboard a landed (?) UFO. They had sex, leaving Villas-Boas feeling as if he'd been used solely as breeding stock.
If copulation was the purpose of the abduction, it's probable Villas-Boas was right. But more disturbing is the implication that Villas-Boas and his seductress were genetically compatible, which would be radically unlikely if his encounter involved extraterrestrials. As bizarre as it seems, a more likely explanation for Villas-Boas' experience is that he mated with an unknown offshoot of the human species -- which in turn invites the idea that "they" might be living among us, camouflaged by an advanced technology. The idea may be less strange than it appears; in fact, it may prove significantly more plausible than the extraterrestrial hypothesis.
Assuming, for sake of argument, that we share the planet with intelligent humanoids, their ability to hide would hinge, to a large degree, on their level of technological advancement. Humans (as we know them) seem to be only decades away from a technological "Singularity" with the potential to bend our evolutionary trajectory into a "postbiological" state. According to futurists such as Ray Kurzweil and Max More, it's entirely possible that humans just one- or two-hundred years from now might possess abilities that would seem truly godlike even to denizens of our jaded, science-driven age. Therefore it's not unreasonable to postulate an unseen civilization in our midst -- perhaps living in space colonies, clandestine underground settlements, or even at the bottoms of lakes and oceans.*
Arthur C. Clarke is fond of reminding us of the "magical" qualities associated with a sufficiently advanced technology. Given the present onrush of scientific achievement, it might behoove ufologists to rethink our presumed status as Earth's dominant species.
*See "Invisible Residents," zoologist Ivan Sanderson's treatise on underwater intelligences.
There's a new book called "The Hair of the Alien" that supposedly offers forensic evidence of nonhuman visitation. The "alien" in question is a so-called "Nordic" -- one of the tall, blond humanoids encountered working alongside the archetypical "Grays" in many abduction narratives.
Perusing the author's blog, I found an illustration showing the supposed ET. Instead of fitting the Nordic stereotype, she strongly reminds me of descriptions of human/Gray transgenic hybrids (a subject explored in detail in Budd Hopkins' 1987 book "Intruders" and more recently in "Sight Unseen," coauthored with Carol Rainey).
The UFO mythos is full of strangely mannered beings that seem like crosses between homo sapiens and big-headed "Grays." One of my favorite accounts is the now-classic account of Antonio Villas-Boas, who supposedly encountered a gorgeous -- if unusual -- woman aboard a landed (?) UFO. They had sex, leaving Villas-Boas feeling as if he'd been used solely as breeding stock.
If copulation was the purpose of the abduction, it's probable Villas-Boas was right. But more disturbing is the implication that Villas-Boas and his seductress were genetically compatible, which would be radically unlikely if his encounter involved extraterrestrials. As bizarre as it seems, a more likely explanation for Villas-Boas' experience is that he mated with an unknown offshoot of the human species -- which in turn invites the idea that "they" might be living among us, camouflaged by an advanced technology. The idea may be less strange than it appears; in fact, it may prove significantly more plausible than the extraterrestrial hypothesis.
Assuming, for sake of argument, that we share the planet with intelligent humanoids, their ability to hide would hinge, to a large degree, on their level of technological advancement. Humans (as we know them) seem to be only decades away from a technological "Singularity" with the potential to bend our evolutionary trajectory into a "postbiological" state. According to futurists such as Ray Kurzweil and Max More, it's entirely possible that humans just one- or two-hundred years from now might possess abilities that would seem truly godlike even to denizens of our jaded, science-driven age. Therefore it's not unreasonable to postulate an unseen civilization in our midst -- perhaps living in space colonies, clandestine underground settlements, or even at the bottoms of lakes and oceans.*
Arthur C. Clarke is fond of reminding us of the "magical" qualities associated with a sufficiently advanced technology. Given the present onrush of scientific achievement, it might behoove ufologists to rethink our presumed status as Earth's dominant species.
*See "Invisible Residents," zoologist Ivan Sanderson's treatise on underwater intelligences.
This account of a "flying humanoid" south of the border is deliciously weird:
"Horacio Roquet: 'It looked like a human-shaped body, 'standing' vertical and just floating over the roof. I was shocked. The figure was not facing me...I was looking straght [sic] at its right side. It was tall. No sound was heard and we both stood still, watching, while I continued recording.'"
An inflatable mannequin? Some sort of remote controlled gimmick? Or . . .
"Horacio Roquet: 'It looked like a human-shaped body, 'standing' vertical and just floating over the roof. I was shocked. The figure was not facing me...I was looking straght [sic] at its right side. It was tall. No sound was heard and we both stood still, watching, while I continued recording.'"
An inflatable mannequin? Some sort of remote controlled gimmick? Or . . .
Bruce Sterling comments frankly and lucidly on sex and death in the La Brea Tar Pits.
I especially like this observation: "It's awe-inspiring to see that much raw menace out of petroleum. Especially when you realize that petroleum is already a necrotic substance made out of the congealed dead."
I especially like this observation: "It's awe-inspiring to see that much raw menace out of petroleum. Especially when you realize that petroleum is already a necrotic substance made out of the congealed dead."
Meanwhile, in Winchester, England -- a no-kidding Space Invader has materialized in a wheat field, where it no doubt lies in wait to menace hordes of over-eager cereologists. The Ministry of Defense is said to be rapidly evacuating the area and calling in a squad of expert xenobiologists rumored to include Linda Moulton Howe and Whitley Strieber.
Oh my god! Washington, DC is under attack by vague, barely visible blobs of light that look tantalizingly like garden-variety film defects! Seek shelter immediately!
Monday, July 04, 2005
I just read "The Crack in Space" by Philip K. Dick and "Master of Space and Time" by Rudy Rucker. Now I'm back to reading Charles Stross' "Singularity Sky," which I foolishly and inexplicably abandoned several months ago. One of the many virtues of "Singularity Sky" is the way it splices "steampunk" with postmodern space opera without seeming the least bit contrived; Stross really knows what he's doing.
NASA Probe Hits Comet Target
"The successful strike 83 million miles away from Earth occurred just before 11 p.m. PDT, according to mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which is managing the $333 million mission.
"Scientists at mission control erupted in applause and gave each other hugs as news of the impact spread.
"It was a milestone for the U.S. space agency, which hopes the $333 million experiment will answer basic questions about the origins of the solar system."
At least there's something worth celebrating today.
"The successful strike 83 million miles away from Earth occurred just before 11 p.m. PDT, according to mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which is managing the $333 million mission.
"Scientists at mission control erupted in applause and gave each other hugs as news of the impact spread.
"It was a milestone for the U.S. space agency, which hopes the $333 million experiment will answer basic questions about the origins of the solar system."
At least there's something worth celebrating today.
(Here's something else from the depths of my hard drive . . .)
Simone stood near the concave depression that was the Eye. In the failing Martian sunlight, the depression looked deeper than it was: an almond-shaped pool of grays and muddy reds carved from the mesa's surface by tools long since lost in time and sand.
She lifted herself to the balls of her feet, the soil unyielding under the thin soles of her membrane suit. The suit -- if that was the right term for it -- was essentially a single body-hugging nanocomposite veneer; the shiny green finish rendered her into an unlikely dominatrix.
Simone stepped forward, the hiss of oxygen in her ears as the suit's symbiotic metabolism synced itself with her own. It occurred to her she was essentially naked, lacking the thick exoskeletal armor of the first crewed Mars missions. The only portion of her suit that didn't conform to the contours of her body was the swollen, bifurcated globe of her helmet, with its attendant synthesizer block molded into the small of her back.
The visor, split into two opaque domes like the eyes of a grasshopper, seethed with eglyphic readouts from orbiting observatories, along with the obligatory pop-up advertisements from the commercial consortium that had financed the first permanent human presence at Cydonia Mensae. Ostensibly, the benefit was for the jacked-in masses on Earth who would shortly be watching and experiencing Mars through her eyes. Edging her way into the Eye's basin, Simone had the maniac urge to scratch the top of her close-shaven scalp, where consortium neurotechs had installed her optical uplink.
As she made her way farther down into the Eye basin, the ubiquitous dust grew thicker; her flexible green boots kicked ill-defined clouds that encapsulated her ankles and lingered in her wake like cigarette smoke.
She had been exploring the Face's periphery for the last three hours. Almost half of that had been spent scaling the framing mesa's western edge, all the while diligently examining the multitudinous fossils that encrusted the Face like stubble. The base had vehicles for most exploratory work, but Simone considered the Face somehow exempt from routine measures. Strolling atop the Face reminded her of touring some vast open-air museum; the presence of terrestrial technology, such as the brightly painted machinery that defined Cydonia Base, seemed an unsightly intrusion here.
Simone made out the tip of the Pupil dimly silhouetted against the arcing horizon of the Face's jutting, almost Neanderthal, brow. Calling it a "pupil" was a misnomer, of course, although no doubt the vanished architects had intended it to represent the Eye's center. Seen from above, the Pupil appeared oddly cubist, as if some Platonic shape had been partially melted, twisted and left to dry. Project archaeologists had described it variously as a blunted pyramid and faceted cone. Seen from the depths of the Eye's basin, the Pupil was merely a straight-edged shape, undefined and beckoning.
As the shrunken sun fell behind the horizon, the base's floodlights switched on, casting jaundiced yellow light on the darkening red landscape. Simone turned from the dim, angled bulk of the Pupil and gazed out at the base lit up in the distance, so far away the disparate structures seemed a purposeless bauble glued together by light. The deep Martian night swallowed up the broad, eroded seawall of the Fort to the west, which remained defined solely by the illuminated markers installed by reconnaissance missions over the previous decade.
Even snug inside her membrane suit, Simone experienced a chill. Gaudy animations scrolled in her peripheral vision, requesting her presence back at the base. Angrily severing her attention from the looming Pupil, she summoned a flyer. Immediately a gossamer craft rose from the base's landing field and traced a fragile helix in the night sky. The automated flyer moved with the skittish economy of an insect, leaving a smear of pixilated red light across her electronically assisted eyes.
She urged her helmet-mic closer to her lips with a deft flick of her tongue. "Simone Broden reporting back," she said, typically unsatisfied by the sound of her voice filling the bulbous helmet.
"We have you on the monitor." The answering voice could have been one of the base AIs for all of its enthusiasm. Or else one of the contracted project technicians. Simone marveled that even here, mere kilometers from the complex's outcroppings, boredom remained possible.
"Pickup approaching," Simone said as the flyer swooped into a low ellipse. Its slender titanium thrusters winked as it circled and deployed its grapples. The polymer guide-ropes slithered blindly through the air, only faintly visible as they drew suddenly taut. The flyer's blades slowed and it dropped alarmingly, guide-ropes momentarily slack as it turned on its flood lamps. Simone found herself shielding her oculars with splayed fingers. The flyer's blades were just barely visible in the impossibly thin air; she could hear them amplified by her helmet speakers, politely superimposed on the trance score she had downloaded from the media archive that afternoon.
The helmet's electronics filtered the flyer's glare. Relieved, Simone took a step back to watch the brittle-looking device roll to a practiced stop in the dust. Its lamps threw airborne sand into whirling red cones.
The foamed-titanium carapace fell open unceremoniously. She climbed aboard amidst a cloud of glowing dust that immediately flocked to the static-charged panels glued to the narrow floor and thin canted walls. The flyer was a cramped affair with barely enough room for one; the base used them primarily for telepresence excursions.
The craft ascended automatically as soon as Simone had buckled the single, flimsy-looking restraint harness. She watched through jagged windows as the Face fell away like some great mask. She watched the dim lump of the Pupil eclipsed by distance as the flyer sped over the frozen plain, flood lamps bobbing as if to affirm the existence of the surreal structures fringing the horizon. To the south, she could see the broad, tortured peak of the D&M Pyramid coming into view. Holographic beacons formed a lopsided triangle on its bulging northeast flank, shining like pastel flames as they cycled through their retinue of advertisements.
Simone stood near the concave depression that was the Eye. In the failing Martian sunlight, the depression looked deeper than it was: an almond-shaped pool of grays and muddy reds carved from the mesa's surface by tools long since lost in time and sand.
She lifted herself to the balls of her feet, the soil unyielding under the thin soles of her membrane suit. The suit -- if that was the right term for it -- was essentially a single body-hugging nanocomposite veneer; the shiny green finish rendered her into an unlikely dominatrix.
Simone stepped forward, the hiss of oxygen in her ears as the suit's symbiotic metabolism synced itself with her own. It occurred to her she was essentially naked, lacking the thick exoskeletal armor of the first crewed Mars missions. The only portion of her suit that didn't conform to the contours of her body was the swollen, bifurcated globe of her helmet, with its attendant synthesizer block molded into the small of her back.
The visor, split into two opaque domes like the eyes of a grasshopper, seethed with eglyphic readouts from orbiting observatories, along with the obligatory pop-up advertisements from the commercial consortium that had financed the first permanent human presence at Cydonia Mensae. Ostensibly, the benefit was for the jacked-in masses on Earth who would shortly be watching and experiencing Mars through her eyes. Edging her way into the Eye's basin, Simone had the maniac urge to scratch the top of her close-shaven scalp, where consortium neurotechs had installed her optical uplink.
As she made her way farther down into the Eye basin, the ubiquitous dust grew thicker; her flexible green boots kicked ill-defined clouds that encapsulated her ankles and lingered in her wake like cigarette smoke.
She had been exploring the Face's periphery for the last three hours. Almost half of that had been spent scaling the framing mesa's western edge, all the while diligently examining the multitudinous fossils that encrusted the Face like stubble. The base had vehicles for most exploratory work, but Simone considered the Face somehow exempt from routine measures. Strolling atop the Face reminded her of touring some vast open-air museum; the presence of terrestrial technology, such as the brightly painted machinery that defined Cydonia Base, seemed an unsightly intrusion here.
Simone made out the tip of the Pupil dimly silhouetted against the arcing horizon of the Face's jutting, almost Neanderthal, brow. Calling it a "pupil" was a misnomer, of course, although no doubt the vanished architects had intended it to represent the Eye's center. Seen from above, the Pupil appeared oddly cubist, as if some Platonic shape had been partially melted, twisted and left to dry. Project archaeologists had described it variously as a blunted pyramid and faceted cone. Seen from the depths of the Eye's basin, the Pupil was merely a straight-edged shape, undefined and beckoning.
As the shrunken sun fell behind the horizon, the base's floodlights switched on, casting jaundiced yellow light on the darkening red landscape. Simone turned from the dim, angled bulk of the Pupil and gazed out at the base lit up in the distance, so far away the disparate structures seemed a purposeless bauble glued together by light. The deep Martian night swallowed up the broad, eroded seawall of the Fort to the west, which remained defined solely by the illuminated markers installed by reconnaissance missions over the previous decade.
Even snug inside her membrane suit, Simone experienced a chill. Gaudy animations scrolled in her peripheral vision, requesting her presence back at the base. Angrily severing her attention from the looming Pupil, she summoned a flyer. Immediately a gossamer craft rose from the base's landing field and traced a fragile helix in the night sky. The automated flyer moved with the skittish economy of an insect, leaving a smear of pixilated red light across her electronically assisted eyes.
She urged her helmet-mic closer to her lips with a deft flick of her tongue. "Simone Broden reporting back," she said, typically unsatisfied by the sound of her voice filling the bulbous helmet.
"We have you on the monitor." The answering voice could have been one of the base AIs for all of its enthusiasm. Or else one of the contracted project technicians. Simone marveled that even here, mere kilometers from the complex's outcroppings, boredom remained possible.
"Pickup approaching," Simone said as the flyer swooped into a low ellipse. Its slender titanium thrusters winked as it circled and deployed its grapples. The polymer guide-ropes slithered blindly through the air, only faintly visible as they drew suddenly taut. The flyer's blades slowed and it dropped alarmingly, guide-ropes momentarily slack as it turned on its flood lamps. Simone found herself shielding her oculars with splayed fingers. The flyer's blades were just barely visible in the impossibly thin air; she could hear them amplified by her helmet speakers, politely superimposed on the trance score she had downloaded from the media archive that afternoon.
The helmet's electronics filtered the flyer's glare. Relieved, Simone took a step back to watch the brittle-looking device roll to a practiced stop in the dust. Its lamps threw airborne sand into whirling red cones.
The foamed-titanium carapace fell open unceremoniously. She climbed aboard amidst a cloud of glowing dust that immediately flocked to the static-charged panels glued to the narrow floor and thin canted walls. The flyer was a cramped affair with barely enough room for one; the base used them primarily for telepresence excursions.
The craft ascended automatically as soon as Simone had buckled the single, flimsy-looking restraint harness. She watched through jagged windows as the Face fell away like some great mask. She watched the dim lump of the Pupil eclipsed by distance as the flyer sped over the frozen plain, flood lamps bobbing as if to affirm the existence of the surreal structures fringing the horizon. To the south, she could see the broad, tortured peak of the D&M Pyramid coming into view. Holographic beacons formed a lopsided triangle on its bulging northeast flank, shining like pastel flames as they cycled through their retinue of advertisements.
(The following vignette has been languishing on my hard drive for a long time; evidently I wrote it while working a retail job. Enjoy.)
The rasp of plastic-on-metal as salesmen detach from walls, limbs folding into gestures of stiff greeting. Their faces are lean, somehow vapid and predatory. And their limbs move with a certain resistance, as if the muscles beneath have hardened, the joints ossified with fatigue.
A girl enters and studies the merchandise.
Supplicating ceramic smiles. "Can I help you find anything . . . ?"
She moves dismissively, gliding down cluttered aisles with feral confidence. Her skin is tawny, her eyes black and lined with day-old makeup. Her shoulder boasts a small cryptic tattoo.
One of the salesmen follows, knees wheezing pneumatically, arms stiff at its sides as if bound. The head twitches within ferroplastic restraints, lips pulling back in a desperate smile. The arms extend in increments, displaying long bloodless fingers that fumble on a nearby counter like wounded birds.
She glances back, smiling in deprecation and unease. She turns to leave, sandaled feet smacking the tile beneath her threadbare denim dress.
The sound of her necklaces jangling fills the store. Other salesmen, eyes perpetually roaming, fasten onto her as she clutches at her purse, closer to the sliding doors.
The rasp of plastic on metal.
"Can I help you find . . ."
The rasp of plastic-on-metal as salesmen detach from walls, limbs folding into gestures of stiff greeting. Their faces are lean, somehow vapid and predatory. And their limbs move with a certain resistance, as if the muscles beneath have hardened, the joints ossified with fatigue.
A girl enters and studies the merchandise.
Supplicating ceramic smiles. "Can I help you find anything . . . ?"
She moves dismissively, gliding down cluttered aisles with feral confidence. Her skin is tawny, her eyes black and lined with day-old makeup. Her shoulder boasts a small cryptic tattoo.
One of the salesmen follows, knees wheezing pneumatically, arms stiff at its sides as if bound. The head twitches within ferroplastic restraints, lips pulling back in a desperate smile. The arms extend in increments, displaying long bloodless fingers that fumble on a nearby counter like wounded birds.
She glances back, smiling in deprecation and unease. She turns to leave, sandaled feet smacking the tile beneath her threadbare denim dress.
The sound of her necklaces jangling fills the store. Other salesmen, eyes perpetually roaming, fasten onto her as she clutches at her purse, closer to the sliding doors.
The rasp of plastic on metal.
"Can I help you find . . ."
Sunday, July 03, 2005
I've reentered the "alien autopsy" debate on UFO UpDates. Oddly enough, my chief "opponent," photographer Bob Shell, is convinced the footage is "real," but believes it shows a nonhuman being as opposed to an FX dummy (the conventional "debunking" wisdom) or a human corpse.
As evidence, he cites polydactyly, the size of the cranium, the size of the eyes (which he falsely -- if understandably -- insists are too large to be human), lack of visible navel and nipples, "enlarged" muscles in the neck, placement and shape of the ears, and assumed lack of teeth and sexual characteristics.
However -- and to my considerable surprise -- all of these anomalies are readily explained by progeria, despite some superficially intimidating counter-arguments that seemed to suggest otherwise.
I am now virtually certain that we've found the definitive explanation for the being in the autopsy footage; indeed, I think the burden of proof now lies on the shoulders of those maintaining a nonhuman origin.
I don't profess to know when the footage was taken. While circumstantial evidence indicates it may well be a record of one of the experiments conducted on "expendable" subjects in the 1940s, the footage may have nothing to do with the "Roswell incident" or any other purported UFO crash (although the deep wound on the corpse's leg and seemingly "jellied" internal organs certainly bring to mind injuries sustained in high-speed collisions).
I suspect the next angle of attack on this bizarre subject is the so-called "debris footage," which begs the possibility of an ambitious hoax using a progeric corpse as a prop. I'll return to this controversy in an upcoming post.
As evidence, he cites polydactyly, the size of the cranium, the size of the eyes (which he falsely -- if understandably -- insists are too large to be human), lack of visible navel and nipples, "enlarged" muscles in the neck, placement and shape of the ears, and assumed lack of teeth and sexual characteristics.
However -- and to my considerable surprise -- all of these anomalies are readily explained by progeria, despite some superficially intimidating counter-arguments that seemed to suggest otherwise.
I am now virtually certain that we've found the definitive explanation for the being in the autopsy footage; indeed, I think the burden of proof now lies on the shoulders of those maintaining a nonhuman origin.
I don't profess to know when the footage was taken. While circumstantial evidence indicates it may well be a record of one of the experiments conducted on "expendable" subjects in the 1940s, the footage may have nothing to do with the "Roswell incident" or any other purported UFO crash (although the deep wound on the corpse's leg and seemingly "jellied" internal organs certainly bring to mind injuries sustained in high-speed collisions).
I suspect the next angle of attack on this bizarre subject is the so-called "debris footage," which begs the possibility of an ambitious hoax using a progeric corpse as a prop. I'll return to this controversy in an upcoming post.
A little perspective:
According to Richard Hoagland -- an imaginative man to whom I owe much of my interest in Mars exploration -- Steven Spielberg's excellent new movie, "War of the Worlds," is part of an ill-defined psychological indoctrination scheme with far-reaching historical roots.
According to Spielberg: "I just thought it would be fun to make a really scary movie with really scary aliens, which I had never done before."
Somebody hand me Occam's Razor . . .
New History Reveals the Truth About the Fatima Incident
"The records of Sister Lúcia, kept at the archives since the incident, revealed that the children did not interact with an apparition of the Virgin Mary but with a hologram of an extraterrestrial projected on a beam of light from a spacecraft hovering high above them. The archives clearly showed that the entities encountered at Fátima were not deities from Heaven but rather alien beings visiting our planet from 'elsewhere' in the vast Cosmos. This finding was supported by hundreds of other facts from the time of the apparitions. Fátima, the authors discovered, was the first major UFO case of the 20th century."
Like Vallee, I agree that the events in Fatima constitute a puzzle with distinct ufological overtones. But I find the notion that the Fatima visitations were the work of ETs with holographic projectors too simplistic and "sci-fi"; I think something else was at work -- given the level of strangeness, perhaps a "technology of consciousness" that could dramatically reframe our understanding of who and what we are.
In fact, the more I delve into the UFO/encounter issue, the less and less appealing the "nuts and bolts" extraterrestrial hypothesis becomes. This isn't to say some UFOs aren't ET.; just as the national security state uses the UFO phenomenon as a cover for secret projects, an indigenous nonhuman intelligence could be using the same phenomenon as psychosocial camouflage . . . or is it the other way around?
The "new ufology" -- if there is such a thing -- must learn to dispense with "either/or" thinking. The truth is seldom so convenient, as physicists learned at the dawn of the quantum era.
"The records of Sister Lúcia, kept at the archives since the incident, revealed that the children did not interact with an apparition of the Virgin Mary but with a hologram of an extraterrestrial projected on a beam of light from a spacecraft hovering high above them. The archives clearly showed that the entities encountered at Fátima were not deities from Heaven but rather alien beings visiting our planet from 'elsewhere' in the vast Cosmos. This finding was supported by hundreds of other facts from the time of the apparitions. Fátima, the authors discovered, was the first major UFO case of the 20th century."
Like Vallee, I agree that the events in Fatima constitute a puzzle with distinct ufological overtones. But I find the notion that the Fatima visitations were the work of ETs with holographic projectors too simplistic and "sci-fi"; I think something else was at work -- given the level of strangeness, perhaps a "technology of consciousness" that could dramatically reframe our understanding of who and what we are.
In fact, the more I delve into the UFO/encounter issue, the less and less appealing the "nuts and bolts" extraterrestrial hypothesis becomes. This isn't to say some UFOs aren't ET.; just as the national security state uses the UFO phenomenon as a cover for secret projects, an indigenous nonhuman intelligence could be using the same phenomenon as psychosocial camouflage . . . or is it the other way around?
The "new ufology" -- if there is such a thing -- must learn to dispense with "either/or" thinking. The truth is seldom so convenient, as physicists learned at the dawn of the quantum era.
"As living information, the plasmate travels up the optic nerve of a human to the pineal body. It uses the human brain as a female host in which to replicate itself into its active form. This is an interspecies symbiosis. The Hermetic alchemists knew of it in theory from ancient texts, but could not duplicate it, since they could not locate the dormant, buried plasmate. Bruno suspected that the plasmate had been destroyed by the Empire; for hinting at this he was burned. 'The Empire never ended.'"
(Excerpted from Philip K. Dick's "Exegesis.")
Saturday, July 02, 2005
Part Six of Richard Hoagland's Iapetus proposal is online. (Come on, Hoagland -- if you're going to use my South African spheroid idea at least drop me a link.)
Richard's also started a blog. The first entry appears to be a characteristically lavish symbolic deconstruction of "The War of the Worlds" and all things Spielbergian.
More later.
Contaminated Arctic only looks pristine: From kelp to Inuit mothers' milk, all suffer from migration of industrial toxins
"'Silent Snow' is the culmination of five years' research and dozens of trips to various Arctic settlements to uproot the cause and effect of this vast Arctic paradox. Cone wanted to know why some Inuit mothers carry such extraordinary loads of PCBs and mercury that their breast milk could be classified as hazardous waste. She wanted to know how it is that the most harmful pollutants get stockpiled in Arctic ice and in the fat cells of Arctic mammals."
John Shirley comments:
"People in developing countries are exposed to a repellent cornucopia of toxins--many of them consciously introduced into their food by food processors for a variety of reasons. There's a strong likelihood that industrial and food processing toxins are implicated in this epidemic of dementia."
"'Silent Snow' is the culmination of five years' research and dozens of trips to various Arctic settlements to uproot the cause and effect of this vast Arctic paradox. Cone wanted to know why some Inuit mothers carry such extraordinary loads of PCBs and mercury that their breast milk could be classified as hazardous waste. She wanted to know how it is that the most harmful pollutants get stockpiled in Arctic ice and in the fat cells of Arctic mammals."
John Shirley comments:
"People in developing countries are exposed to a repellent cornucopia of toxins--many of them consciously introduced into their food by food processors for a variety of reasons. There's a strong likelihood that industrial and food processing toxins are implicated in this epidemic of dementia."
Friday, July 01, 2005
Discovery of unusual planet has scientists puzzled
"A Japanese-U.S. joint research team has found a planet covered by a thick layer of gas like Jupiter but which has an unusually large core of rocks and ice -- a discovery scientists say could overthrow the established theory of planet formation.
"The planet, belonging to the Hercules constellation about 250 light years away from Earth, does not fall into the category of either Jupiter-type, gas-covered planets that have low density, or high-density, Earthlike planets." (Via The Anomalist.)
"A Japanese-U.S. joint research team has found a planet covered by a thick layer of gas like Jupiter but which has an unusually large core of rocks and ice -- a discovery scientists say could overthrow the established theory of planet formation.
"The planet, belonging to the Hercules constellation about 250 light years away from Earth, does not fall into the category of either Jupiter-type, gas-covered planets that have low density, or high-density, Earthlike planets." (Via The Anomalist.)
Galactic Gradients, Postbiological Evolution and the Apparent Failure of SETI
"There are specific conclusions of practical interest to be drawn from coupling of these reasonable assumptions with the astrophysical and astrochemical structure of the Galaxy. In particular, we suggest that the outer regions of the Galactic disk are most likely locations for advanced SETI targets, and that intelligent communities will tend to migrate outward through the Galaxy as their capacities of information-processing increase, for both thermodynamical and astrochemical reasons."
OK, now we're talking.
"There are specific conclusions of practical interest to be drawn from coupling of these reasonable assumptions with the astrophysical and astrochemical structure of the Galaxy. In particular, we suggest that the outer regions of the Galactic disk are most likely locations for advanced SETI targets, and that intelligent communities will tend to migrate outward through the Galaxy as their capacities of information-processing increase, for both thermodynamical and astrochemical reasons."
OK, now we're talking.
The Army is Screaming
"While using lethal force to respond to protests is likely to attract the attention and indignation of the international community, non-lethal options can be deployed more frequently and more widely, often with total impunity. Thus, the temptation is great to use such weapons to suppress non-violent protests, political gatherings that would have been left unmolested in the absence of non-lethal means.
"The AP wire story itself already demonstrates the tendency of the media to cast a forgiving eye on non-lethal military interventions, suggesting that the use of The Scream does not qualify as 'resorting to force.' Is it not 'force' to assaulting a person's inner ear until he or she is disoriented, vomiting, and unable to remain in the affected vicinity? In a world where torture is officially no longer torture, but merely 'abuse,' perhaps even this is possible."
Related:
Wonder Weapons, $20 a Pop
"Cloaked in the dull skepticism of a flat-earther, I naively thought that advances like 'Electro-Hypnotizers' and 'Ion Ray Guns' were the stuff of science fiction, or merely hoaxes."
"While using lethal force to respond to protests is likely to attract the attention and indignation of the international community, non-lethal options can be deployed more frequently and more widely, often with total impunity. Thus, the temptation is great to use such weapons to suppress non-violent protests, political gatherings that would have been left unmolested in the absence of non-lethal means.
"The AP wire story itself already demonstrates the tendency of the media to cast a forgiving eye on non-lethal military interventions, suggesting that the use of The Scream does not qualify as 'resorting to force.' Is it not 'force' to assaulting a person's inner ear until he or she is disoriented, vomiting, and unable to remain in the affected vicinity? In a world where torture is officially no longer torture, but merely 'abuse,' perhaps even this is possible."
Related:
Wonder Weapons, $20 a Pop
"Cloaked in the dull skepticism of a flat-earther, I naively thought that advances like 'Electro-Hypnotizers' and 'Ion Ray Guns' were the stuff of science fiction, or merely hoaxes."
Oceans turning to acid from rise in CO2
"Many scientists view the world's oceans as an important sink for capturing the human-induced greenhouse gas CO2 and slowing global warming. Marine plants soak up CO2 as they breathe it in and convert it to food during photosynthesis. Organisms also use it to make their skeletons and shells, which eventually form sediments. With the explosion of fossil-fuel burning over the past 200 years, it has been estimated that more than a third of the human-originated greenhouse gas has been absorbed by the oceans. While marine organisms need CO2 to survive, work by Caldeira and colleagues shows that too much CO2 in the ocean could lead to ecological disruption and extinctions in the marine environment."
More great news:
Leaders scrap targets on climate change to keep the US on board
"According to one senior official, Tony Blair's aim was simply to set out an action plan on greenhouse gases that would include meetings for a post- Kyoto 'dialogue'.
"Nevertheless, the ground is clearly being prepared for a communiqué that does not even state that mankind is responsible for global warming, which could seriously hamper agreement on how to combat the phenomenon."
"Many scientists view the world's oceans as an important sink for capturing the human-induced greenhouse gas CO2 and slowing global warming. Marine plants soak up CO2 as they breathe it in and convert it to food during photosynthesis. Organisms also use it to make their skeletons and shells, which eventually form sediments. With the explosion of fossil-fuel burning over the past 200 years, it has been estimated that more than a third of the human-originated greenhouse gas has been absorbed by the oceans. While marine organisms need CO2 to survive, work by Caldeira and colleagues shows that too much CO2 in the ocean could lead to ecological disruption and extinctions in the marine environment."
More great news:
Leaders scrap targets on climate change to keep the US on board
"According to one senior official, Tony Blair's aim was simply to set out an action plan on greenhouse gases that would include meetings for a post- Kyoto 'dialogue'.
"Nevertheless, the ground is clearly being prepared for a communiqué that does not even state that mankind is responsible for global warming, which could seriously hamper agreement on how to combat the phenomenon."
CELESTIAL FIREWORKS: NASA prepares to crash craft into comet for sake of science
"In a high-speed maneuver 83 million miles from Earth, scientists will aim a two-stage spacecraft at a distant comet late Sunday night, hoping to blast a deep crater into its icy nucleus and spew out its insides to reveal what these messengers from the early solar system can tell us of their origin."
"In a high-speed maneuver 83 million miles from Earth, scientists will aim a two-stage spacecraft at a distant comet late Sunday night, hoping to blast a deep crater into its icy nucleus and spew out its insides to reveal what these messengers from the early solar system can tell us of their origin."
Thursday, June 30, 2005
NASA Sets July 13 Shuttle Launch Date
"Earlier in the week, an advisory panel concluded that NASA failed to meet three of the 15 safety recommendations issued by the Columbia accident investigators in 2003. Despite many improvements, the shuttle is still vulnerable to pieces of foam or ice falling off the external fuel at liftoff, and the astronauts still have no reliable way of fixing damage to their ship's thermal shielding once in orbit, the group said.
"But Griffin and others at NASA believe those risks have been reduced to an acceptable level."
Fuck "acceptable." I think astronauts should strike -- simply refuse to consider going into space until we have a launch vehicle that's up to technological standards of at least, say, the mid-1980s.
"Earlier in the week, an advisory panel concluded that NASA failed to meet three of the 15 safety recommendations issued by the Columbia accident investigators in 2003. Despite many improvements, the shuttle is still vulnerable to pieces of foam or ice falling off the external fuel at liftoff, and the astronauts still have no reliable way of fixing damage to their ship's thermal shielding once in orbit, the group said.
"But Griffin and others at NASA believe those risks have been reduced to an acceptable level."
Fuck "acceptable." I think astronauts should strike -- simply refuse to consider going into space until we have a launch vehicle that's up to technological standards of at least, say, the mid-1980s.
Clearing smoke may trigger global warming rise
"Global warming looks set to be much worse than previously forecast, according to new research. Ironically, the crucial evidence is how little warming there has been so far.
"Three top climate researchers claim that the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere should have warmed the world more than they have. The reason they have not, they say, is that the warming is being masked by sun-blocking smoke, dust and other polluting particles put into the air by human activity.
"But they warn that in future this protection will lessen due to controls on pollution. Their best guess is that, as the mask is removed, temperatures will warm by at least 6°C by 2100. That is substantially above the current predictions of 1.5 to 4.5°C."
"Global warming looks set to be much worse than previously forecast, according to new research. Ironically, the crucial evidence is how little warming there has been so far.
"Three top climate researchers claim that the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere should have warmed the world more than they have. The reason they have not, they say, is that the warming is being masked by sun-blocking smoke, dust and other polluting particles put into the air by human activity.
"But they warn that in future this protection will lessen due to controls on pollution. Their best guess is that, as the mask is removed, temperatures will warm by at least 6°C by 2100. That is substantially above the current predictions of 1.5 to 4.5°C."
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Windfarms -- Blight or Blessing?
"The Cape Cod Wind Project was proposed in 2001 for Nantucket Sound. It will consist of 130 wind powered turbines, each 40 stories tall. Together, they will generate enough electricity to power most of Cape Cod. The turbines will cover a 24-square-mile area of seafloor within view of the shoreline.
"'In terms of the opposition, the most emotionally felt argument . . . is that it would intrude on a very special place and the creatures that live there,' Kempton says. 'There appears to be something special about the ocean, a feeling that for many people underpins their opposition to the project.'"
Intruding on a very special place. How touching. And how unfortunately typical of the American ecological outlook, in which environmentally heinous smoke-belching power plants (kept considerately out of sight, of course) are preferable to ranks of quietly spinning windmills.
If these fuckwits on Cape Cod were truly enamored of the ocean they'd be embracing wind-power. But with consummate superficiality, they're shunning it in favor of technologies that have already begun to render the oceans lifeless.
These people don't deserve beachfront property; let them risk their necks in Iraq if maintaining the fossil-fueled status quo is so integral to keeping their beloved view unimpaired.
"The Cape Cod Wind Project was proposed in 2001 for Nantucket Sound. It will consist of 130 wind powered turbines, each 40 stories tall. Together, they will generate enough electricity to power most of Cape Cod. The turbines will cover a 24-square-mile area of seafloor within view of the shoreline.
"'In terms of the opposition, the most emotionally felt argument . . . is that it would intrude on a very special place and the creatures that live there,' Kempton says. 'There appears to be something special about the ocean, a feeling that for many people underpins their opposition to the project.'"
Intruding on a very special place. How touching. And how unfortunately typical of the American ecological outlook, in which environmentally heinous smoke-belching power plants (kept considerately out of sight, of course) are preferable to ranks of quietly spinning windmills.
If these fuckwits on Cape Cod were truly enamored of the ocean they'd be embracing wind-power. But with consummate superficiality, they're shunning it in favor of technologies that have already begun to render the oceans lifeless.
These people don't deserve beachfront property; let them risk their necks in Iraq if maintaining the fossil-fueled status quo is so integral to keeping their beloved view unimpaired.
In cold blood (J.G. Ballard on "C.S.I.")
"The series unfolds within an almost totally interiorised world, a clue to its real significance. The crimes - they are all homicides - take place in anonymous hotel rooms and in the tract housing of the Vegas and Miami suburbs, almost never in a casino or druglord's gaudy palace. A brutal realism prevails, the grimmest in any crime series. Suburban lounges and that modern station of the cross, the hotel bathroom, are the settings of horrific murders, which thankfully are over by the time each episode begins. Gloves donned, the cast dismantle u-bends and plunge up to their elbows in toilet bowls, retrieving condoms, diaphragms and bullet casings, syringes, phials and other signs of the contemporary zodiac. Faecal matter and toilet paper are never shown, perhaps reflecting American squeamishness, though evidence of anal intercourse and vaginal bruising is snapped out like the tennis scores." (Via Beyond the Beyond.)
"The series unfolds within an almost totally interiorised world, a clue to its real significance. The crimes - they are all homicides - take place in anonymous hotel rooms and in the tract housing of the Vegas and Miami suburbs, almost never in a casino or druglord's gaudy palace. A brutal realism prevails, the grimmest in any crime series. Suburban lounges and that modern station of the cross, the hotel bathroom, are the settings of horrific murders, which thankfully are over by the time each episode begins. Gloves donned, the cast dismantle u-bends and plunge up to their elbows in toilet bowls, retrieving condoms, diaphragms and bullet casings, syringes, phials and other signs of the contemporary zodiac. Faecal matter and toilet paper are never shown, perhaps reflecting American squeamishness, though evidence of anal intercourse and vaginal bruising is snapped out like the tennis scores." (Via Beyond the Beyond.)
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