Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

Thanks.

I agree with the rest of your comments. In case I didn't make it clear enough before, let me restate that bad science in scifi that serves no purpose other than catering to the laziness of the screenwriter bugs me as much as it does anybody.

I don't enjoy most scifi that drifts toward the fantasy end of the spectrum for the same reason. It drives me bananas when, on page 193, the hero is in a corner and from out of nowhere, some new magic power is introduced.

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

The first priniple of dealing with crackpots is don't deal with crackpots. But, for the record: my mother worked on the Apollo project. I grew up around the engineers who had to solve the real engineering problems that had to be surmounted in order to accomplish that task. My current job involves devices that encode and decode telemetry for Earth orbiting satellites, devices that are directly descended from technology developed during the leadup to the moon shots. I've been to NOAA's offices near DC and seen video directly shot from space, and the rooms full of expensive equipment needed to provide that data. I've written software that that touches every bit that's returned by those satellites. If we can achieve orbit, the Moon isn't that much further away, dude - really.

My mother has a plaque with a piece of metal, a coin made from the melted down metal from the Apollo 11 command module - given to her (and many others) as a celebration of the moon landing. Do you have any idea how hard it would have have been to keep a conspiracy of the magnitude you blithely suggest under a hat for this long? How many smart people would either have to have been tricked or co-opted until they died? (Many of them are still very much alive.) It's lunacy (literally!) to believe in a conspiracy of that magnitude.

Why does every crackpot decide that Occam's Razor is only good for the next guy? There must be some Russell/Occam barber paradox at work here.

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

And yet, I have completely forgiven the "Sonic Screwdriver." Go figure.

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

Ever read Peter F Hamilton's "Night's Dawn" series? It's a rollicking space opera that just keeps getting more and more dire - a great read for over a thousand pages and then Wham! the biggest, dumbest, most literal deus ex machina solution ever published. I haven't read a single book by him again.

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

The biggest problem I had with Jurassic Park was that when Sam Neil and Laura Dern are standing in a meadow surrounded by dinosaurs and Richard Attenborough tells them he has cloned Tyrannosauruses, they don't immediately start looking for safe haven or verifying that they don't have access to that area.


No, I was not referring at all to the 'nanny state'. This may be more a product of my personality but it always sort of struck me as hypocritical that people I knew who often ridiculed religion (I'm an agnostic myself but a foxhole catholic) also often refer to 2001 (and to a lesser extent, Contact) as 'a religious experience' that seemed to cater to their beliefs in some form of heaven or supreme beings.


I did read it but I also took into account Clarke's quote that anyone who claims they understand the story (of the film) is wrong. I took that as a cop-out and a very good reason to form my own conclusions.

I also think of nannies as gardeners but I don't remember that term from the book (I read it in the early 70s).

And to be completely honest, I much prefer the short story The Sentinal more than the 2001 film and book combined (notwithstanding Kubrick's technical brilliance). It was absolutely brilliant, had a terrific ending and laid the greatest thump to that thing which makes all science fiction great, our imagination. I can easily see how it inspired Kubrick to begin the process.

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

LOL! Wish I knew more about Who.

As another example of the failure of general statements to cover all cases, I hate disco, but I love this song.

As you say, go figure.

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

No. Never heard of it. What a horrifying thing, though.

Makes me think of a Misery-like scenario, in which you would kidnap Hamilton and force him to rewrite the ending.

But after you got over the shock of the immediate annoyance, did you feel the first 95% was, in the end, worth it?

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I don't want to dogpile here but this is the most incredible understanding of burden of proof I've ever read. To prove that the official Kennedy assassination story is true you have to assassinate a president using a 60s era rifle and book depository. To prove Barack Obama is a citizen of the USA you have to send an American-born black man back in time to the 2008 elections and have him win without calling on the mysterious political powers granted to non-Americans.

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

No. It was like (let's see if I can suggest this metaphor without being too literal about it) getting to the end of perfect date with beautiful woman, and thirty seconds before certain achievements are fully realized she gets a phone call, forgets you're there, and just drifts away. I was pissed. I've been tempted to try another of his stories more than once. But once jilted, forever wary. I like the Misery scenario though!

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

ROFL! I'd forgotten that part.

The part I hated most about that movie (I liked it okay, overall) was when the kids went into the control center, looked at a generic third-party graphical thingy on a computer screen, and said, "Oh, it's Unix! I know that!"

Come to think of it, I'm hard-pressed to name any scene in any movie involving a computer where I didn't wish to have the screenwriter's knuckles within reach of my ruler. I'd like to emulate Jennifer Ouellette and form an computer geeks' advisory committee to help Hollywood cut down on this aspect of bogosity, too.

Hmmm. No doubt you're right about a lot of them -- it seems a part of the human condition not to be able to avoid the occasional longing for something/someone better to fix problems and answer questions and demonstrate larger purpose and meaning and so forth.

For some, though, I'd say that calling something "a religious experience" is just a cultural linguistic artifact, much along the lines of me, an atheist, expressing exasperation by saying, "Good Lord." These are words that have long denoted the highest, farthest, most intense, etc. For the only other route, one is limited to proposing a neologism with the suffix -gasm to about twice before it becomes really irritating.

Fair enough. My uncle said the only message you were supposed to take away from the movie is that if/when we do encounter an alien intelligence, it is ludicrous to think we'll be able to understand it. He also said he disliked the book because "it explained too much."

For myself, I guess I don't have much of a problem with, as I called it before, the conceit of postulating a superior alien species that is interested in life on Earth (and elsewhere in the galaxy), be it the makers of the monolith, the responders in Contact, the Heechee, or even, as with Heinlein, Author.

The Sentinel was a great story. I'd hate to have to choose between that and 2001. I still re-read both, so I guess I don't have to. ;^)

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

Giorgio Moroder! It has a way subtler melody than most disco, and sounds as much like seventies Krautrock (at least the more melodic variations e.g. later Tangerine Dream) as it does disco. I'm totally a sucker for this song.

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

My father once found a book on a remainder table that he gave to me as a present while snickering. I couldn't figure out why. It was a pretty good hard-boiled detective story, told in the first person, set in Boston. Even had a good computer hacking thread. My meat, Jack.

Then I got to about page 317 and found forty pages were missing. Not torn out, just missing. And it was immediately clear from page 357 or whatever that it was not just a numbering goof -- somehow, they truly had omitted twenty sheets during manufacture.

Curiously, for a time, I held this against the author.

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

Man, that's mean! I can imagine that sort of thing evolving into escalating practical joke wars. I think I'd like your dad.

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

Never heard of krautrock before, but I loved The Avengers!

Oh, wait.

Yeah, I've always thought "I Feel Love" is different, somehow, while being unsure that I wasn't just rationalizing. I do think one thing that appeals to me is that it has dynamic shifts, with the chorus, especially, so it seems more like music than a skipping record permanently stuck in the same groove, the way most disco does. Plus, Donna Summer can flat-out sing; even if it's the same three words over and over, that voice is a real musical instrument.

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

Heh.

Yeah. That's exactly right.

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

I'm pretty much fully with bjkeefe. (A minor deviation might be that some specific claims of creationists are indeed subject to scientific inquiry through geology, cosmology, evolutionary science, paleontology, etc.)

Really, though, if you look hard enough at most of these fringe claims, they fall apart. If you want to jump through enough mental hoops, you can believe anything (the fact that there is still a Flat Earth Society should substantiate that), but anyone predisposed to look critically at the evidence presented without preconceived biases can pretty easily suss out what the truth is.

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It is an amazing aspect of the human brain that people can find every fault in the world with the other guy's wacky beliefs, but when the same or similar flaws in reasoning are applied to their own beliefs, they shut down.

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

I would add that my dad worked for Grumman/Pratt&Whitney as a metallurgist and worked on metals for the LEM, based on specific conditions of the moon's atmosphere. So while the gov't could have doled out huge contracts to employ people like him for nothing more than a farce, is technically possible...I doubt it.

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

I know I've said it before, but I highly recommend George Johnson's "Architect's of Fear" for an excellent look into conspiracy theories. His focus is more on geo-political, mason-illuminati/zionist/council-on-foreign-relations type theories, but the spirit is no different than the science-based fringe theories. He touches very well on what exactly makes people so eager to embrace these theories that stretch the limits of logic (to put it mildly.)

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

While I hardly read fiction any more (for some reason I just got burnt out). This thread made me think of sci-fi fiction from my past.

If I was asked to recommend a few, they might be:

The Enemy Stars - Poul Anderson
Way Station - Clifford Simak
The Gap Cycle (series) - Stephen R Donaldson
Starship Troopers - Robert A Heinlein (great novel, film of same title is almost unrelated)
A Fall Of Moondust - Arthur C Clarke
Imperial Earth - Arthur C Clarke
Whipping Star - Frank Herbert
The Caves Of Steel - Issac Asimov
Foundation (series) - Issac Asimov
Footfall - Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
PRESS ENTER■ - John Varley
The Stainless Steal Rat - Harry Harrison
Bill, The Galactic Hero - Harry Harrison

Short Stories

Anniversary - Issac Asimov
The Sentinal - Arthur C Clarke

yeah, it's been a while since I cracked a sci-fi book.

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

Thanks for the implicit recommendations on your list. I haven't read the ones by Anderson, Donaldson, Herbert, one of the two by Harrison, and I've never even heard of Varley.

The ones on your list that I have read I'd agree were all at least very good, and most I'd call great.

I'm interested that Starship Troopers was the Heinlein book that came to your mind. I thought that was good, but I liked at least half a dozen others better -- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, The Number of the Beast, Friday, Stranger in a Strange Land, Citizen of the Galaxy, Farnham's Freehold, Time Enough for Love, all the novellas in The Past Through Tomorrow, Double Star, Door Into Summer, Job: A Comedy of Justice ... okay, that was more than six.

I could say something similar, but less pronounced, about Clarke. Maybe more precisely, just add The Fountains of Paradise, Rendezvous with Rama, 2001, 2010, and 2061. and Childhood's End, at least. (Maybe you just didn't make a comprehensive list, and I'll spare you a list of the twenty or so other Asimovs I've loved as much as the ones you said.)

I'd add a bunch by Frederick Pohl to the top shelf, especially the Gateway (aka Heechee) series.

I'd add The Legacy of Heorot by Niven, Pournelle, and Barnes, and the Motie duology and Lucifer's Hammer, by Niven and Pournelle, to the top shelf as well.

Ditto a couple by Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon), although how much the latter is SF is debatable. Make the S stand for speculative as a dodge, I guess.

More from the old school: The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and The Time Machine by H. G. Wells.

Oh, and one more classic: Walter M. Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz. That's on the shortest of short lists.

Apart from Stephenson, I haven't come across much I've liked in at least the past decade, not that I'm really looking that hard. Maybe, like you, I burned out, or just had my tastes change. It does seem to me, though, that what I've picked up and flipped through lately is less "hard" SF than I prefer (preferred?), although it has to be admitted that the Foundation series -- among my all-time favorites -- is hardly hard SF. I think in a lot of cases though, what really appealed about the old masters was that they were set in this solar system, and being a kid of the Apollo age, that seemed possible (within my life) for a few happy years.

Of course, once I found out the Moon landings were faked, it all went downhill from there.

;^)

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

The ones I listed were just ones that came to mind when I posted but on refelction they all are among my favorites.

I really think Starship Troopers is one of Heinlein's best not because of the science but more for the first person view of the soldier and how interstellar war may be more complicated but grunts are still grunts and sergeants are still sergeants.....and the enemy is still the enemy.

Most of my reader friends claim Stranger In A Strange Land is Heinlein's masterpiece but I couldn't get into it. I much prefer ST, Friday and Job


Varley is very very good. I can't believe PRESS ENTER■ has not yet been made into a film because it is a great suspense story and not very long.

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Ah. Good.

Yeah. I liked a lot of his stuff, even primarily, for his understanding of people, too.

I could imagine that.

I'll keep an eye out for it. Thanks again.

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That may be the funniest thing you've ever said to me.

$BP

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

I've bookmarked it. Thanks Brendan.

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I suspect we can overrun the BH server with this topic Nate. Like many, I didn't even know about the show when it was on T.V. and only found out about it through word of mouth later when a friend gave me the videos. I've never mourned a T.V. program as much as I mourn FireFly, and I don't think Serenity the film quite captured for newbies all that was good about the it, as you can only gain full appreciation of FireFly from the serial narrative arc of the characters.

Yet another reason why Fox sucks.

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I was the same way. I ended up buying the DVDs of the show (and documentary about it) though when I figured out how good the show was.

Oh, I totally agree. Serenity was like season 2 of the show. (admittedly crammed into one movie) It is very enjoyable if you have seen the first (only) season of the show, but there are a lot of references people would not understand if they had not seen the show first.

Re: Science Saturday: Astronomical Edition
 

For anyone who doesn't already know: the full run of Firefly is available on Hulu. That's where I watched it (after learning about it from the good people at Poli-Sci-Fi-Radio). If you've never watched something on Hulu before, I'd say give it a shot -- they do Web TV about as well as anyone does.