Author: publius

Fools! I will destroy you all!!

ASFO 2023–02–25

Ice cream is the next frontier of “climate action” as marketing campaign. The delicious flavour of Pykrete! Also, is the Internet becoming a vast Voynich Manuscript? and a reflection on the problem of lying down with dogs and getting up with fleas. Note : owing to an error on my part, this show was done several hours late, during the 0300 Sunday OpenMic block on aNONradio. Thanks to SDFer screwtape for recording it.

“The Flying Scarab and the Seventh Heaven”

Here we have another story by Rene Mansfield from Popular Electricity magazine. This and “The Sun Victim”, which appeared in The Popular Magazine, are mentioned by Everett Bleiler in Science Fiction : The Early Years ― his comment on this one is “horrible writing”. Possibly I will be able to get my hands on that third story at some future date.

Illustrations below the cut

ASFO 2023–02–18

Charles Proteus Steinmetz is a name you should know. For generations Edison was lionized, now Tesla is cast as the romantic hero, but Steinmetz is always ignored. Yet, where would we be without him? Also, what does it mean that India has ordered 470 new large jetliners? The very necessary distinction between “renewable” and sustainable energy, and a reminder of the importance of quantitative thinking. And Mail Call!

Supplementary Show

2023–02–24 “Why Nuclear Power Should be Defended”, address given 1980–03–15 in Los Angeles by Professor Petr Beckmann, author of The Health Hazards of NOT Going Nuclear ― transferred from audiocassette

“A Sherlock of the Skies”

This brief story combines the detective genre with aviation, as the name would imply, but also with wireless, the other wonder of the age. It is thus science fiction, of a sort at least. It appeared in Popular Electricity magazine, 1912 October, over the name of Rene Mansfield.

Illustrations below the cut

Superb Owl Sunday 2023

In celebration of this important American religious festival, I am reading for your delectation, All Men are Brothers by Pearl S Buck. And what is that? It’s a translation of the 14th–century Chinese adventure novel The Water Margin. There are lots of Chinese names and by–names, very challenging to keep track of, along with violence, occasional cannibalism, and minor supernatural elements ― all kinds of fun! And in the 02z00 hour I’ll be calling in to aNONradio OpenVoIP, in case you want to talk with me about the story.

ASFO 2023–02–11

A Question, of the type I so love to pose. Also more about that cult I’m definitely not starting, and a brief aside regarding so–called generative artificial intelligence (also referred to as “regurgative AI” or “stochastic parrots”), with a plea to read Reflections on Trusting Trust. And I merely tease a dive into the wonderful world of the Oklo Phenomenon.

ASFO 2023–02–04

Power outage? Power outrage! And just like that, I’m back to talking about the Regulated Utility Model for applying private enterprise to furnishing public goods, and trying to examine its potential uses in fields as disparate as pharmaceuticals and housing. With a bonus mention of Jimmy McMillan, the guy who says The Rent Is Too Damn’ High! Also Mail Call.

Supplementary Show

  • 2023–02–07 More from Interstellar Migration and the Human Experience (Finney and Jones, eds) : Introduction to Section II, Demography and Economics : Growth of the Human Tribe ; Comments on Hodges’ “The Division of Labor”, by the editors (with a very different view of “artificial intelligence” from that exhibited by, say, ChatGPT) ; Introduction to Section III, Migrating Societies ; Introduction to Section IV, Speciation ; and a part of the Introduction to Section V, Is Anybody Home? (stopping at the beginning of the section on the “Fermi paradox”).
  • 2023–02–10 Probably the last I’ll read out of Interstellar Migration and the Human Experience (but perhaps you’ll be interested enough to seek out the book for yourself). Fermi’s Question, the Epilogue, and the short biographies of authors.

They do not grow old, as we who are left grow old

I acquired what might have been, by that time, the last new, sealed copy of Challenger Memorial tape in the world at the Montreal Worldcon in 2009, and listened to it obsessively for two weeks when I got home.

“Recorded during a memorial presentation at Bayfilk III in San Jose, California, on March 9, 1986, before an audience of 200. The dream is, and must remain, alive.” (Archive recording)

Continue reading “They do not grow old, as we who are left grow old”

ASFO 2022–01–28

Graphite leads me to consider the problem of false mental world pictures, with a detour to boggle at the neologism elementeome. I interrogate just what it would mean for The Singularity to come in seven years. And, having considered “population control” from the standpoint of genocide last week, I look at it from the standpoint of eugenics ― which involves a closer examination of that concept. Also there may be just the slightest smidgeon of cult–starting.

ASFO 2022–01–21

In which I announce an Exciting New Initiative, although I’m not yet clear on how to pay for it, and consider non–existent remedies for non–existent maladies, and the question of whether you are really entitled to your own opinion, if you can’t be bothered to inform yourself about the topic. Also… yes, Virginia, reducing the human population of Earth to 2 billion by 2100 would in fact constitute genocide, even if you do it purely by limitation of births. Let’s spend more time on the happier business of the what and how of the Lunar Settlement, shall we?

Cover of a booklet entitled (in German) "Homeopathic Prescriptions for a Future with Radioactivity".
Non–existent remedies for non–existent maladies

Supplementary Shows

  • 2023–01–24 Probably the last reading from Man and the Moon. In addition to the notes by Richardson, I read the whole of Where to Land on the Moon by Wilkins, and the first part of Man on the Moon ― The Exploration by Whipple and von Braun (from the famous 1952 Man Will Conquer Space Soon series of illustrated articles in Collier’s). The idea behind this has been to get a feel for the way people were thinking when serious work on space travel began.
  • 2023–01–27 Interstellar Migration and the Human Experience (Finney and Jones, eds) is the proceedings of a conference held at Los Alamos in 1983. And a very interesting volume it is, too! I read the Table of Contents, Prologue, Introduction to Section I Resources : Human, Technological, and Cosmic, and the concluding summary to Solar System Industrialization : Implications for Interstellar Migrations by David Criswell.