…and with a few bugs, it IS working.
If you’ve had trouble joining or accessing Jane’s page, go over there and talk to her: she’s in our contact info tab above! We love our readers and we’re very happy to create you a membership.
Jane and I both have adopted the 'contact us to join' policy…
by CJ | Feb 25, 2014 | Journal | 31 comments
31 Comments
Submit a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
My very first comment! I was SO glad I was able to change the password in my profile. I’m too old to remember more than a couple. Delighted to be a member. I’ve been lurking here for years and really enjoy such a prolific writer (I’ve read them all, several times, and love the Foreigner series) and blogger (good lord, you guys can actually skate! And survive to write about it). And I’ve read some of Jane’s too and enjoy them as well.
Suggestion: I got this tip from CJ, and I’ve found it to be a lifesaver. LastPass, which is a cloud-based storehouse for passwords. You can generate passwords for multiple websites, and if you need to access the storehouse, you only need to remember one password, your master password. LastPass installs as an add-on to your browser, it shows it’s working by using a six-pointed asterisk inside a red square. If the square is gray, it’s not running and you need to click on it. It will also alert you if there are multiple passwords for the same site, you can edit as you need. I have been using it for a couple of years and have found it to be very good at what it does.
You can download the free version at http://www.lastpass.com
I heartily second this, having been a user for years. LastPass also works across browsers, and being an extension, operates in ANY OS, Windoze, Mac, or even Linux!
Tangential: Foreigner 2: Invader and Foreigner 3: Inheritor are now out in ebook. I’m not sure how long those have been out, but they were not as of September of last year. However, books 4 Precursor, 5 Defender, and 6 Explorer are still awaiting ebook release, as are Chanur’s Homecoming and Chanur’s Legacy.
Also, hey, it’s just over a month until the release of Foreigner 15: Peacemaker, in hardbound and ebook. (Yes, my pre-orders are still in.)
CJ-aiji, I have a page showing the USA availability for the Foreigner books at:
http://www.shinyfiction.com/cherryh-fan/foreigner/books.html
Best Wishes!
It would be easier to read if the +’s were green and the -‘s red, or some such.
Thanks for the suggestion, Walt. I’ll fix it later in the week.
C’est un fait accompli. — One’s man’chi to CJ-aiji did not allow one to make the negatives Cherry Red. Therefore, (-) are bronze/copper, (0) or (?) are grey, and (+) are a viridian green rather too like the link colors used. One shall consider custom symbols with an atevi flavor for these, as well as more suitable coloration.
Looks tree bone.
(To get to the root of the matter.)
:groan: Mercy buckets. 😀 … Tree buckets? I’d better leaf before we’re all acorn.
Just want to remind you all to check the ShejiCon IV Planning tab (last row, last tab above the title) for updates. I will be posting questions and requests for assistance. Thanks.
Thanks so much for the fast response time! I’m glad to be a member now and I look forward to keeping up with the goings-on of this blog.
In unrelated but interesting news, they found a gladiatorial school at Carnuntum, near the arena.
http://www.ineffableisland.com/2011/11/school-of-gladiators-discovered-at.html
The gladiator thing is interesting. There were several ways you got to be a gladiator: you enrolled, and gave up your ‘free’ status and your citizenship; you were condemned—violent criminals who liked killing people were deemed fit for the arena…and indeed, the origin of the custom was letting the gods decide who should go on living; and thirdly, slaves, usually POWs, who would not settle into their status and who had been repeatedly tagged for fighting—ie incorrigible rebels, many of whom had the added problem of not speaking Latin or understanding it well enough. There were escapes from slave status, either by buying your way out, or by winning your freedom through service; or, the most remote, becoming a gladiator and remaining undefeated long enough to win the rudus, the wooden practice sword, which was the award of a man being freed from the arena — with quite a bit of status. The gladiators were treated like football heroes, and had quite a mystique, which was why some free persons decided that that was their way to fame and fortune.
Back when Russell Crowe came out with “Gladiator”, there was a news article by a history professor I read while waiting for class that mentioned several disparities about our common perception of gladiatorial games.
As CJ stated, they were the “football stars” of their era. I also read that the “thumbs down/thumbs up” sign was not used, it was a romantic notion by an artist painting a scene. Instead of “thumbs down” to indicate no mercy, it was supposedly “thumb held outward away from the body”. (I suspect that we’ve used thumbs up and down to reflect our own emotional swings. When we’re up, we’re happy, when we’re down, we’re sad….)
You wouldn’t want a prizewinning gladiator to get seriously hurt, that time, money, training, etc., in your investment down the cloaca? Again, why would you put thumbs down on something that valuable?
Let’s see, IIRC, the Colosseum was never used for throwing the Christians to the lions, but rather for other games, such as bear baiting, bull baiting, having one species fight another species, etc. The Colosseum could also be flooded and mock naval battles staged, as well. Having seen the structure close up, but not allowed to go inside, it was impressive. Not only in the architecture, but in the planning that went into the accesses. The entire seating area could be vacated in something like 8 minutes, with nobody in a panic to get to the exits. It’s too bad that the stone used for the veneer of the arena was stolen for other buildings surrounding it. I’m sure it would have been even more impressive if left intact.
Chariot races would have been at the Circus Maximus, with its long stadia running down the middle (hence the term “stadium) demarcating the oval course the horses would have to run.
Unfortunately, I can’t remember the other places in Rome where certain “bloody games” would have been held, especially in the early Empire (after about 27 BCE), when Augustus dissolved the Second Triumvirate and took sole power.
“CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – Scientists added a record 715 more planets to the list of known worlds beyond the solar system, boosting the overall tally to nearly 1,700, astronomers said on Wednesday.
The additions include four planets about 2-1/2 times as big as Earth that are the right distance from their parent stars for liquid surface water, which is believed to be key for life.
The discoveries were made with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s planet-hunting Kepler space telescope before it was sidelined by a pointing system problem last year.”
But 2.5X in what dimension? Diameter? Mass? A planet 2.5 X diameter of the Earth would have a “crushing” surface gravity. In any event it would have more than Earth’s “peach fuzz” of an atmosphere. No place we could live. Very different body forms. Reaching escape velocity would be very daunting. 😉
Here in one thread, we have the massive technical advances in a roughly two thousand year period, from late Iron Age culture with an impressive low-tech civilization spanning large portions of one continent and sizeable portions of two others. We have, from 1700 to 1800 years later, the expansion of pre-industrial culture through seafaring trade and exploration (and aggressive colonization and conquest). We have then the very start of planetary orbital and lunar exploration, and the bare start of estimating (not yet knowing) what’s in the stellar neighborhood.
Not bad for two millennia and change (extra coins as change, for international readers).
Of course, this assumes the species can resume forward progress in more extensive cooperation across the globe, and resume exploration beyond the Earth-Moon orbit.
Not yet do we have an interplanetary / star system-wide exploration. Also not yet do we have interstellar exploration. (Discounting a few probes of the other planets and the Voyager probes beyond the Sol system.)
Hmm, and this would ignore a similar world civilization in and around future China, or other major ancient civilizations, most of which grew into modern cultures, rather than being subsumed by internal strife, external conquest, merger with another group, etc.
But still, pretty good for a rather contentious but curious species of bipedal, nearly hairless primates.
It’s a curious thing how very much we’ve changed from those ancient European tribes and the Greeks, Romans, Gauls, Germanics, etc. whose ideas still inform so much of our laws, customs, philosophy, and science. — Though that would, I suppose, ignore all the other world groups that have since had major impacts on those things, as well as later people from any of those places (and others then unknown) who made further changes.
“Globalization” is popular lately, and it’s true it’s having an impact, socially and technically and economically. But we’re only starting to see that. — What more blending, tossing, fusion will we get before we’re even into that interplanetary stage? Just thinking of mass media and food cultures, for two examples, or social stresses and opportunities, for another.
This, despite the negatives one sees on the nightly news. Sigh. One wishes all these primates (oneself included) would outgrow all the dangerous, species-childish misbehavior. So much potential in such a strange kind of creature, is humankind.
I still find it amazing that people are upset that NASA is still sending probes out, that they are still planning on colonizing Mars, etc. People say the money could be better spent here on earth instead of wandering out among the stars. My response to these people is something on the order of, NASA sparked the great miniaturization of devices, especially solid-state, and the new sciences that have been made possible by those devices. In 1955, could doctors have imagined an MRI? (BTW, the man who received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2004 developed the MRI, and he was a couple of years ahead of my father at their high school.) Would we have foreseen an Internet, and all of the small devices we used to communicate, or the iPhone, iPad, iPod, the Android phones, the laptop or PC that many of these “primates” are using to post their grievances to the Internet?
The great technological explosion shows no signs of slowing down, rather increasing, if I’m not mistaken. As new ideas come along, they spark more new ideas, which then continue on as more new ideas.
Then, there is the great crater near Chicxulub, or Meteor Crater in Arizona, which should serve as a reminder that we are a one-planet species, that it takes just one good-sized rock and we are a no-species. As dependent upon our technology as we’ve become, the odds of surviving aren’t all that great, IMO. There might be a few lucky folks who make it, but without sufficient sunlight, no plants, no plants, no food chain. So, I’m hoping we get to the interplanetary stage before much longer…..
Would we have forseen…
Well, yes, I think we have, past tense, if not in detail, in scope, by explorers such as Aiji-daja. Planets are dime a dozen in literature, and now in fact.
The ARPA-Net was developed because policy makers “saw” the need for a robust, reroutable communications network in case of the destruction of some cities in nuclear attack, as opposed to the point-to-point circuit-switching offered by the telcos. The oft claimed maximization of “good” by commercial endeavor is challenged by grant-supported University-based basic research departments as the real hot-beds of technological advancement.
However, in the interests of setting the story most “explorations” at least violate the Laws of Thermodynamics, and blithely postulate practical use of a “physics” that is mere fantasy. Energy is not free. Thus, as Apollo 8 showed us, we’d really better learn not to soil our bed, and make it up in the morning! 🙂
I wonder why they think that money isn’t being spent here on Earth.
Well I’m not looking to NASA for the way off the planet. Hooked to government funding. No, I’m looking to Richard Branson and others of that ilk. And to silicon valley and other nations continuing the miniaturization process. Because it WILL happen! Not likely for me (OH, how I wish) but I like to think SOMEBODY related to me will go!
While Branson might be very rich, and have lots of connections, I don’t believe he’s going to be able to match what a government agency can bring to the table. Remember that any commercial venture is going to involve people expecting to get a return on their investment. How much money is invested in a single launch, and how many spares are available if the launch is a failure? What happens if the launch fails and the investors pull out? Who’s left holding the bag?
I think having a cynical look at NASA isn’t fair to NASA at all. Please note that NASA has a far lower budget and allocation from the U.S. Government than almost any other agency, and yet, NASA has managed to do more than most other agencies. The space shuttle flights were government run, but they were still partially funded by commercial ventures, especially those companies who had satellites to launch. A lot cheaper to have the shuttles do it, although I think there could be vast improvements in the way we run the shuttles. I think using them as a means of transportation to the ISS and from there to higher orbits might be a better use of their capabilities. The problem arises in the amount and type of fuel that’s used to boost. If you’re boosting from Earth, then you can use what’s available on Earth, but everything on the ISS has to be boosted up, or else there needs to be a different type of propulsion system available for orbital craft to move to a higher orbit. I don’t know if ion drives are powerful enough at the start of a boost, and I’m certain I don’t want an atomic engine spewing radioactivity all through space behind it. The shielding for that alone would be prohibitively massive, unless it were never to land on Earth. Could they use alcohol for their fuel, the fermentation tanks could possibly reside on the ISS or on a structure that’s kept at a mean temperature of about 25C, and then you’d have the distillation process. That’s kind of bulky, unless a means of distilling by freezing, which is viable, could be incorporated. It’s the same means we used to use in college by freezing a can of beer and then just drinking what was not frozen – mostly alcohol. (BTW, that is illegal, in case you were wondering – it’s distilling and you need a license, but who’s looking?) So, we have alcohol for fuel, all we need next is an oxidizer. Is our rocket engine going to have enough thrust to get the vehicle into a higher orbit, say 450- 600 miles up, or better? From there, we could have construction platforms building interplanetary ships that would never touch the surface of a planet. Shuttles could be flown up to those ships, or they could be built in orbit along with the ships.
I think people have been selling NASA short because of mistakes that have been made along the way, but NASA has never been a secretive organization. How many mistakes in the Soviet space program have you heard about? I’d venture to say not all of them. Yet people make fun of NASA when for example, they used English measurements instead of metric on a Mars lander. Simple mistake, costly, but they didn’t hide the fact that they made a mistake. Whether the agency that successfully carries out a profitable (?) space program is a government or a private business, the ground work has been done largely by government agencies. The commercial concerns are coming in to the ball game after the government built the park, the seats, and the concession stands.
Darn, I had a wonderful reply all typed up, clicked on “Post Comment” and it disappeared into the Ether! Argh…..well, it really shouldn’t have been on this thread anyway…..but it was my opinion on NASA vs. commercial enterprises.
Mine is simple. It’s the mandate of NASA to release all its patents to the public — which is what the private guys use to do their thing. NASA invents it, they use it, refine it, etc. So without NASA the private space folk would be sending up test rockets to this day. If NASA kept all its patents it’d be the richest entity on Earth.
Without a doubt, NASA has been (and will continue to be) a force when it comes to exploration and discoveries. Heck, I know where I was in July, 1969! I only say that NASA is preparing the way for others to follow. I just don’t think that NASA – itself – will be the ones who actually get us off.
Branson might have billions of dollars and many contacts, but he’ll never be able to match the funds that a government can bring to the table. Besides, as a commercial venture, he requires investors to bring in capital and they expect a return on their investment. How many launch vehicles would Branson (or whoever) have available? Where would he launch from? How often could he launch? What happens if there’s a launch failure? Will the investors get cold feet and start to pull out of the program? Who gets left holding the bag? It would be a spectacular triumph and a spectacular failure, but if you’re going to fail, it’s best to fail big. You won’t get anywhere trying to take little steps when your goals are as lofty as space. I believe you can’t match the money that a government agency or a consortium of governments can bring to the table.
I wonder what we could use in order to make space travel viable. I believe the ISS is a nice starting platform, but it’s not designed for docking large numbers of ships – in fact, I believe it’s only designed for the Soyuz craft, which severely limits the number of people that can come and go, as well. Perhaps there could be an addition to the ISS where shuttles could be built and fueled, launched, and returned to the ISS for the next mission. Those shuttles could be used to boost materials and manpower up to the next higher orbit, maybe 450 – 600 miles, and another station could be built which could be used to build interplanetary ships. The hardest thing to bring up would be the materials to build or the fuel needed to power those ships. I don’t know if alcohol would be a good fuel in space, but it’s possible that a section of the ISS could be added to ferment and distill. The biggest need there would be fermentable mass, and distillation could be done by freezing the alcohol to remove the water, just run the cooling lines out into space and use them in a heat exchanger to freeze the alcohol. Then you’d need an oxidizer, and I’m not sure which would be best and safest to use in a closed environment like the ISS.
I do know that I don’t want an atomic motor spewing radioactivity all over the place and the mass of the shielding alone would be prohibitively expensive to operate the engine. So, would an ion drive have sufficient power to boost the shuttle from low earth orbit up to high earth orbit? If so, then you might be able to eliminate an oxidizer. Barring an actual “warp drive” due to a severe lack of dilithium crystals and possibly antimatter, I don’t think we’ll be achieving Warp 8 in the next few centuries.
I think people have sold NASA short because of the failures that have occurred in the program. NASA has never been a “secretive” agency, and the coverage of its programs have been pretty well open throughout the time we’ve been going into space. Of course, there are classified DoD programs that we don’t talk about, and I don’t know anything about them, either. But do you think the Soviets disclosed all of their failures in their space program? I seriously doubt we know all of the problems they had, especially with their manned flights. People laughed at the Mars lander that was destroyed because someone used English measurements instead of metric. I’m sure that if that had been a Soviet probe in 1975, you wouldn’t have heard a thing about it. NASA admits they made mistakes, and they keep trying.
I believe that whichever program, government or commercial, makes it into space is doing so on the groundwork that NASA and the Soviet Space Agency, along with ESA to a lesser degree, has laid. The commercial guys are coming to the ballgame after the governments have built the park, installed the seats, and built the concession stands.
Is anyone else counting down the days until Peacemaker arrives on 1 April? 32 and counting including delivery on 1 April, 30 days in March, and 28 February.
What a maroon (sic) I am. That should have been 31 days in March and the 28th of Feb.
Yup. I’m signed up too!
My pre-order for both ebook and hardbound are still go for release. — I had to re-pre-order (lol) at one point, because Amazon had seen fit to undo that, too early, I guess. — So if you’ve pre-ordered months ago, it’s a good idea to double-check.
I too am signed up for Peacemaker – I wonder what piece Bren is making this time, or has he become a salesman for Colt.
And do we finally have the birthday party?
Who knows….will Cajieri have a felicitous Natal Day? Nothing wrong with being a salesman for Colt, except I prefer Kimber…..;)