On a recent vacation, my wife and I were driving through West Virginia and saw that Green Bank Observatory wasn’t far from our itinerary. We drove through the rolling countryside to the remote location. The Observatory is within the National Radio Quiet Zone, where there are no cell towers, forcing us to use paper maps for about two hours each way. It was worth the drive; we had a fascinating tour of the radio telescopes from a guide knowledgeable in the history of their use for the SETI program.
I was reading the latest issue of Symmetry Magazine when an article caught my eye. This is a publication that presents news from Physics in layman’s language, written by SLAC National Lab (where I spent 25 years) and its sister lab Fermilab. In the article, the former director of communications at CERN reminisced about the challenges of explaining the science that they do, especially in the face of public misconceptions.
Most of you will probably finish that headline in your head with the toothless warning from banks and brokerages: “Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns.” So too with authors. We often pick up books by authors we’ve liked in the past, only to be disappointed. Or sometimes, surprised.
My own contribution, Charon, is a poignant tale of loss and reconciliation. It follows Simon Aeneas Kost on his solitary voyage to Pluto and its moon, Charon. He confronts his deepest fears as he encounters our first interstellar visitor while far from human company, wandering the desolate banks of the river Styx.
Even a cloudy eclipse is worth experiencing. Even better, we gathered at one of our favorite wineries. An afternoon of sipping wine took the sting of the clouds away.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that an eclipse will sweep across the United States on April 8.
While in Japan for New Year’s Day, we encountered a shrine dedicated to cats. The place was the former residence of a progressive feudal lord who experimented with bringing western technologies to Japan.
My wife and I made our annual New Year’s Day trip to Japan. This year, that day was interrupted by the massive Noto earthquake. Fortunately, we were far enough away that we only felt a rolling sensation, like the deck of a ship cresting a wave. We were in a store at the time; the overhead signs swayed a few inches, but the main effect was everyone’s cell phones simultaneously sounding an emergency alert. For those who were closer, the quake shifted the entire coastline of the Noto peninsula by up to 800 feet. The destruction was immense. The TV networks showed nothing else for the next week.
Lampworks Lamplighter Jólakötturinn: The Yule Cat and other tales The Lampworks Lamplighter SF & Fantasy News & Reviews It appears that your email client isn’t displaying the newsletter correctly. Please view the web version for
Lampworks Lamplighter Short Fiction The Lampworks Lamplighter SF & Fantasy News & Reviews It appears that your email client isn’t displaying the newsletter correctly. Please view the web version for the best experience. In this