Bummer

David Gemmell has died. He was my favorite author of fantasy. His books are action packed and full of memorable characters. The heroes of his novels are usually seriously flawed men, sometimes with few redeeming features, but they always know the difference between right and wrong, and a strong sense of morality infused his works. Here is an excerpt from his novel The Legend of Deathwalker:

Druss nodded, his face solemn. "I am not a thinker," he said, "nor am I stupid. I am a man like so many others. I could have been a farmer, or a carpenter, even a laborer. Never a teacher, though, or a cleric. Intellectual men make me nervous. Like that Majon." He shook his head. "I have met a great number of ambassadors, and they all seem identical: easy, insincere smiles and gimlet eyes that don't miss a thing. What do they believe in? Do they have a sense of honor? Of patriotism? Or do they laugh at us common men as they line their purses with our gold? I don't know much, poet, but I know that men like Majon-- aye, and you-- can make all I believe in seem as insubstantial as summer snow. And make me look foolish in the bargain. Oh, I can understand how good and evil can come down to numbers. Like those women in the fountain. A besieging army could say, 'Kill six women and we'll spare the city.' Well, there's only one right answer to that. But I couldn't tell you why I know it is right."

Hot SF Chick of the Week : Week 4

Lynda Carter aka Wonder Woman and the Wonder Twins.



Bonus picture:

A Day in the Life of an SRB

NASA has this cool video up that is taken from a camera mounted on one of the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters. The video is long (about 12 minutes) but is very neat. Liftoff occurs about 50 seconds into the clip and booster separation occurs at around the 3 minute mark. Next is a long segment of the booster cartwheeling through the sky on its journey to the ocean. The parachute deploys at about the 7:20 mark and touchdown is at 7:33. After that it seems to be just floating in the water. Good job NASA!

Hot SF Chick of the Week: Week 3

No introduction needed:

Titan Flyby

As many of you know, I have a small army of post-human, pseudo self-aware net entities crawling the internet for interesting topics and Salma pictures to be posted in The Chinese Room. One such manifestation sent me a link to a flyby of the Saturnian moon Titan by the Cassini space probe. This is the 16th flyby of Titan by Cassini. If you remember, on the second, the Huygens probe was release and landed on Titan, taking some pictures and sound recordings before its battery ran out. For a complete list of Cassini close encounters with Saturn's moons, check out this page.

Happy Aphelion Day!

July 3rd is Earth's aphelion, or the point in its orbit that it is farthest from the sun. According to Kepler, this is also the point that the Earth is moving slowest.