Saturday Sounds - The Sadies - Colder Streams

The Sadies are a Toronto band that I've been listening to for quite a while. They have a twangy, guitar-driven sound that reminds me of the early Byrds, especially with the psychedelic influences. From all accounts, they're a great live band, though I've never seen them perform.  

Sadly, Dallas Good, one of their founding members, died earlier this year. Their new album, Colder Streams, was completed before his death, and it's excellent. For a more detailed look at the band and the album, see this review from Paste magazine.

Climate Change Could Get a Lot Worse

It's pretty clear that climate change is beginning to have large effects on our lives, despite the fact that we are nowhere near the 1.5C or 2.0C that is often cited at the threshold that we need to avoid. But how bad could it get? 

Here's an article from Gizmodo that summarizes the results of a recently released research paper. Both are worth reading, although I wouldn't recommend doing so just before going to bed. (I was going to save this for another We're Toast post, but it really deserves more attention).

The signs right now are pointing to us being able to avert the types of disasters laid out in this report. The IPCC in its report earlier this year outlined specific pathways to help avoid 2 degrees of warming; if all nations stick to their existing pledges under the Paris Agreement, we’re on track for just a 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.24 degrees Fahrenheit) increase. Still, the worst case if we don’t meet these targets could be really bad. Politically vulnerable nation states share a “striking overlap” with areas that have the potential to see extreme heat. The paper also outlines what it calls the “four horsemen” of “the climate change end game”: vector-borne diseases, famine and undernutrition, extreme weather, and global conflict. These four factors, the paper states, could be exacerbated by other climate impacts, like sea level rise, as well as enhancing other non-climate risk factors like inequality and misinformation.

And if you are a praying person, pray that the Republicans don't win the 2024 election in the US.  

 

How Companies Are Abusing VFX Artists

If you are a fan of special effects (VFX)-laden movies, you should read this article about how big movie companies are abusing VFX artists and the consequences that it has for movies.

I've heard quite a bit over the years about how digital gaming companies have turned into sweatshops forcing their developers to work ridiculous and dangerous hours to finish games. It seems that the same pattern is happening with the companies that produce the special effects for movies, especially the films produced by Marvel. 

“[Marvel] is the worst example of a lot of the problems in the industry,” said Sam. “It would be one thing if sometimes it was really bad, sometimes it wasn’t… But with Marvel, it seems like every single time it’s the same thing. So, one, they tend to be as bad as you’re going to get and they’re consistently that bad.”

Hector recalled that during the last Marvel project he worked on, “from my very first day on the project, up until we delivered the shots, we were working overtime and weekends. It was just months of literally being nailed to my desk.” He laughed as he said this, almost like he hated to admit it.

“Even up until the last week or so they still weren’t sure what they wanted this gigantic set piece to look like. We were still doing concept art.” Hector said. Concept art is supposed to be the first thing you nail down before you start working on the pieces that will eventually be composited together to make up the shot. “And various parts of this sequence had already gone through the entire pipeline. You’ve got lighting renders, effects simulations, matte paintings, and animation.” All of this, ready to go, and Marvel still hasn’t approved concept art.

It's a sad situation and I don't know what will change it, short of government intervention. 

How the Webb Telescope's Images Are Processed

In one of the dumber controversies on the internet, people are arguing that the colour in the images are fake. 

Duh. Well of course they are, in the sense that the Webb telescope is imaging colours that the human eye can't see, namely the infrared portion of the spectrum. So the colours in the images that have been released are assigned by the scientists and technicians who process the images to bring out the most detail and show the features in their best light (sorry). 

This article does a good job of explaining what the telescope actually sees and how the images are processed. 

“I think there’s some connotations that go along with ‘colorizing’ or ‘false color’ that imply there’s some process going on where we’re arbitrarily choosing colors to create a color image,” DePasquale said. “Representative color is the most preferred term for the kind of work that we do, because I think it encompasses the work that we do of translating light to create a true color image, but in a wavelength range that our eyes are not sensitive to.”

Longer infrared waves are assigned redder colors, and the shortest infrared wavelengths are assigned bluer colors. (Blue and violet light has the shortest wavelengths within the visible spectrum, while red has the longest.) The process is called chromatic ordering, and the spectrum is split into as many colors as the team needs to capture the full spectrum of light depicted in the image.

“We have filters on the instruments that collect certain wavelengths of light, which we then apply a color that is most closely what we think it will be on the [visible] spectrum,” said Alyssa Pagan, a science visuals developer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, in a phone call with Gizmodo.

Featured Links - August 8, 2022

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Stephan’s Quintet, a visual grouping of five galaxies

• The U.S. Is Dry, Dry, Dry. "Most of the country is experiencing drought as of early August, and millions are under water use restrictions."
• How to properly clean your eyeglasses like they are delicate camera lenses. I should follow the tips in this article. 
• China could shift to fully reusable super heavy-launcher in wake of Starship. "China’s launch vehicle makers appear to be designing a fully reusable version of the Long March 9 super heavy-lift rocket needed for future megaprojects."
• JWST Shows Gas Around A Supermassive Black Hole Like Never Before. "An in-depth view of the core of one of the galaxies in Stephan’s Quintet has revealed the incredible capabilities of JWST."
• ‘Frankly it blew my mind’: how Tron changed cinema – and predicted the future of tech. "From cyberspace to AI, Steven Lisberger’s 1982 sci-fi classic was way ahead of its time. The team behind it explain how they made a game-changer."
• Default Windows 10 Settings You Should Change Right Now. "If you're not upgrading your computer to Windows 11, you can still improve your experience by changing these default settings."

Photo of the Week - August 7, 2022

Here's a hibiscus from my late mother-in-law's yard, taken with my Pixel 4a.

Saturday Sounds - Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder - Get On Board

Get on Board is a lovely, down-home blues album from two of the greats, Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder. Both of these guys have been around for a while and listening to this album feels like walking in an old pair of comfortable shoes. 

Review: The Genesis Machine

The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology, by Amy Webb and Andrew Hessel

If you want a non-fiction book that reads more like a science fiction novel, The Genesis Machine is for you. It's the authors' contention that the current state of modern biological science, referred to as synthetic biology is at roughly the same state as communications technology when Alexander Graham Bell conducted the first public demonstration of the telephone. 

Given that premise, they go on to show just how synthetic biology could change our lives, both for the better and the worse. I'm not as familiar with biology and medicine as I am with physics and astronomy, but I had no problem following their argument. The book is well written and compelling and occasionally rather scary in its implications.

I recommend it highly to anyone who is interested in science and wants a window into our future.

Featured Links - August 3, 2022

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Swans on Frenchman's Bay

• Deepmind's Releasing AI Predictions for Virtually Every Protein Known to Science. "The expanded database increases the number of known, cataloged proteins by over 200x, from 1 million structures to around 200 million structures."
• 170-Year-Old Coded Newspaper Messages Linked To Hunt For Infamous Franklin Expedition. Coded messages began appearing in The Times from 1850-1855. Turns out, they were related to the hunt for the infamous Franklin Expedition.
• Plotting the Future of the Most Storied Studio in Jazz. "The New Jersey recording space built in 1959 by Rudy Van Gelder is filled with history. Can it regain its glory without getting stuck in the past?"
• How Netflix’s The Sandman Brings the Neil Gaiman Masterpiece to Life. "Neil Gaiman and David S. Goyer walks us through the making of Netflix's adaptation of iconic DC comic book series The Sandman." I am really looking forward to this.
• 10 Common Mistakes First-Time Linux Users Make. "Improve your initial impression of Linux by learning more about the most common mistakes new users make."
• Meet the Exotic Dancer Who Went Undercover to Take Down Domestic Terrorists. "In an exclusive interview, Rebecca Williams reveals her identity and details her work with the ATF to help investigate a racially-motivated bombing, bringing its white supremacist perpetrators to justice."

Movie and TV Reviews - July 2022

Short reviews of movies and TV shows we watched in July. 

Movies

• West Side Story: I've liked West Side Story ever since seeing the movie when I was in high school. (I'm not a big fan of musicals, but this is one of the handful that I like). I wasn't expecting much from the remake, but I was wrong. It's wonderful. While the music and the dancing are top notch, it's the cinematography that blew me away. This is a movie that I could watch without the sound and still enjoy. I really regret not seeing it on the big screen. (Crave)
• The Fifth Element: We watched this on BluRay the night Rogers died when we couldn't stream anything. It's just as dumb as I remember it, but it has a satirical edge that I missed the first time through. Better the second time around. 
• The Gray Man: We were looking for a mindless action flick for Saturday night and thought this might be suitable. Unfortunately, my bad movie self-defence mechanism kicked in and I fell asleep halfway through. It's a standard action thriller but the Russo brothers have opted not to light half the scenes, which made it unwatchable for me. I don't know why so many current movies are so dark, but it's really beginning to grate on me. (Netflix)
• Last Night in Soho: I was looking forward to seeing this as it had gotten good reviews and I wasn't disappointed. What starts out as a typical coming-of-age movie (young woman goes to the big city to find fame and fortune) turns into a gripping exercise in psychological horror. It's a brilliant, bravura piece of filmmaking. (Crave)

TV Shows

• The Hidden Life of Pets: The series swerves over into "too cute for words" territory occasionally but I still enjoyed it. It's not just about dogs and cats, though they get their place, but birds, rodents, and reptiles are also featured. (Netflix)
• Brokenwood Mysteries, season 8: More in the continuing Aussie detective series (filmed in Australia, set in New Zealand). Light entertainment but we are enjoying it. (Acorn TV)
• Monty Don's Adriatic Gardens: Venice, Croatia, and Greece are featured in this series of gardening travelogues. I have no urge to visit Venice, but Croatia and Greece are another matter. (Acorn TV)
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Well, it got better as the season progressed and the last couple of episodes were OK. Still, I just don't see the point of trying to reboot a tired and used-up idea. (Crave)
• Grantche5ster (season 7): It amazes me how such a small English village can have so many murders, and that there are any eligible females that vicar Will has not yet slept with. (PBS Masterpiece)

Taking the Weekend Off

It's another long weekend up here in the Great White North. This Monday is Simcoe Day, as it's known as in Ontario, or just the civic holiday. It's a provincial holiday, not federal, so not everyone will have the day off, but any excuse for a long weekend will do. So I'm taking it off from blogging. See you again on Tuesday. In the meantime, enjoy this flower. 

Featured Links - July 29, 2022

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

A peaceful afternoon at the Topsail Island marina

• A Visual Guide to the Aztec Pantheon. "Through these illustrations, I hope to commemorate the complexity of the Aztec Pantheon, make the academic research more accessible, and show how this civilization is still alive in our global culture. With luck, they will also help you see this society with the wonderment of your inner child’s eyes, just like I did all those years ago."
• Why the Arctic Is Warming 4 Times as Fast as the Rest of Earth. "The loss of sea ice is exposing darker waters, which absorb more of the sun’s energy. It’s a devastating feedback loop with major consequences for the planet."
• ‘There’s no one long Covid’: Experts struggle to make sense of the continuing mystery. "A group of virologists gathered to ask and answer questions about what causes long Covid, how to predict who gets it, and how to treat it."
• The unexpected star of NASA’s Webb images — the alt text descriptions. "A team in Baltimore was responsible for the words that made the stunning photos accessible to everyone."
• Best Practices for Graphics in Modern Publishing Pipelines. "The following best practices for creating and publishing graphics are application-agnostic and can be done in everything from open source software to top-flight, tools-integrated component content management systems."
• Could machine learning fuel a reproducibility crisis in science? "‘Data leakage’ threatens the reliability of machine-learning use across disciplines, researchers warn."
• Tonga Eruption Filled The Atmosphere With Water, Potentially Damaging The Ozone Layer. It could also contribute to global warming over the next decade.

Syd Barrett the Artist

Syd Barrett is best known for being one of the founding members of Pink Floyd, but he was also a very talented artist. Here's a short video of some of his art. I was vaguely aware that he was an artist as well as a musician but had no idea he was as good as this video demonstrates.

 

2021 World Fantasy Awards Ballot

The finalists for the 2021 World Fantasy Awards have been announced. The winners will be announced at the World Fantasy Convention in New Orleans over the November 3rd weekend. I expect that A Master of Djinn will win the Best Novel award.

These are the finalists for Best Novel.  

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho (Ace Books/Macmillan)

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark (Tordotcom/Orbit UK)

The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros (Inkyard Press)

The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri (Orbit US/Orbit UK)

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward (Nightfire/Viper UK)

Featured Links -July 26, 2022

 Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

• Famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed a cabin in Algoma. "The E. H. Pitkin Summer Lodge, located on Sapper Island, is the last surviving Frank Lloyd Wright building left in Canada."
• Strike! Webb Telescope Report Reveals Micrometeor Damage To Mirrors. "In a commissioning report, the Webb Telescope team included an image of the telescope’s giant, honeycombed primary mirror that betrays the damage inflicted by a piece of space debris that smacked into the Webb sometime between May 22 and May 24, 2022."
• Webb Telescope's Search for Life In Space May Take Longer Than Expected. And if you have image processing skills, you can process the Webb data yourself. 
• Princess Mononoke: The masterpiece that flummoxed the US. "Twenty-five years old this week, the film is Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki's most complex work. But how it was mishandled in the West speaks of fundamental artistic differences, writes Stephen Kelly."
• Can Democracy Include a World Beyond Humans? "A truly planetary politics would extend decisionmaking to animals, ecosystems, and potentially AI."
• Manuscripts and art support archaeological evidence that syphilis was in Europe long before explorers could have brought it home from the Americas. "The only problem is that this syphilis scenario is wrong, according to ongoing research by paleopathologists, scientists who study skeletal remains for evidence of disease. After decades of painstaking work, they have concluded that the syphilis-causing spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum already existed in the Old World long before Columbus boarded his ship and sailed to Hispaniola."
• The Silurian Hypothesis: Could An Advanced Civilization Have Lived On Earth Millions Of Years Before Humans? "If a technologically advanced species existed on Earth before us, they may have left a trace."

A Good Weekly Newsletter

I get quite a few email newsletters but one I always look forward to reading is Field Notes. 

Field Notes is a weekly newsletter of urban nature writing and photography from author Christopher Brown. Subscribers receive every new edition of the newsletter directly to your inbox, so you won’t have to worry about missing anything.

Brown is the author of three near-future science fiction novels and lives in Austin, Texas. While I yet read any of his novels (two of them are sitting in the to-be-read collection on my Kindle), I always read and enjoy Field Notes as soon as it hits my inbox. Here's a brief excerpt from this week's newsletter.

It was a few degrees short of a hundred when I took my next break at mid-day and decided to go for a run despite the heat. An urban trail run that sought out the shade, following the bulldozer paths under the new onramp down to the old jeep roads that traverse the woods beneath the bridge. The young deer whose spotted fur I had seen a couple weeks earlier was gone to bones now, mostly desiccated there a few steps from the exit lane that had killed it.

It made me think about the challenges our automotive habitat provides for young animals to try to survive into adulthood and their own reproductive years, and whether the coming generation of self-driving robot cars will improve the situation. Later in the day, the memory got me thinking about what challenges the planet we have made presents for the survival of our own young.

Photo of the Week - July 24, 2022

This week's photo is a hollyhock that we bought for our backyard. I used the Portrait mode on my Pixel 4a to blur the background. It's such a pretty flower.

Saturday Sounds - Jefferson Airplane - Long John Silver

Through much of my adolescence and early youth the Jefferson Airplane were my favourite band by far. I was lucky enough to see the original Airplane twice and if I could go back in time to experience only one concert again, their 1969 concert in Detroit would be it (although I would bring earplugs as they were LOUD). 

The Airplane only lasted until 1972 when they morphed into the various incarnations of the Jefferson Starship, which I saw four times in later years. July 20th was the 50th anniversary of the last studio album, Long John Silver. Recorded live off the floor at Wally Heider Studios in San Francisco in early 1972, it is a perfect snapshot of the Airplane at the end of its too short life. 

It's been a while since I've listened to this album and it holds up better than some of their earlier recordings. Without Marty Balin in the group, Paul Kantner's anthemic science-fiction-tinged epics ("Son of Jesus" and "Alexander the Medium") get the full blast of the band's power. The high point of the album though is probably Grace Slick's soaring "Aerie (Gang of Eagles") which I drove my parents crazy with by playing it at full volume the last year I was living at home. And you should play it loud too. 

The Space Movie

This Tuesday was the 53rd anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon, certainly one of the most significant events of the 20th century. In memory of that, here's The Space Movie, a 1979 movie directed by Tony Palmer and featuring the music of Mike Oldfield. 

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the moon landing, director Tony Palmer traces the history of America's space program, from the earliest stages of rocket development tests during the 1920s to the lunar missions of the 1960s and 1970s. Using archive footage and recorded conversations from the NASA archives, Palmer chronicles all aspects of space missions, including preparation, takeoff, spacewalks and finally Apollo 11's arrival on the moon.

 

Stratford's Richard III

Ontario's Stratford Festival has a world-wide and well-deserved reputation for its Shakespearean productions, musicals, and other plays. Earlier this week, Nancy and I attended their production of one of Shakespeare's better-known plays, Richard III, with Canadian actor Colm  Feore playing Richard, and a splendid production it was.

The play was staged in the newly renovated Tom Patterson Theatre, a smallish room seating about 700 people. Like the larger Festival Theatre, it features a thrust stage that brings the action well out into the audience. The theatre has been upgraded with state-of-the-art audio and lighting that was used very effectively during the play. 

Colm Feore is not an actor who I'd have thought of to play Richard, but he was very believable in the role. He doesn't have the vocal power of say, Brian Bedford, who I saw perform Richard III in the 1970s, but he played Richard with a sly charm and physicality that seemed quite appropriate.  (One of my friends commented that he must need a massage after every performance). The rest of the cast was up to Stratford's high standards, notably Michael Blake (Duke of Clarence), André Stills (Duke of Buckingham), Diana Leblanc (Duchess of York), Seana McKenna (Queen Margaret), and even including the actors who played the young, murdered princes. 

The staging took full advantage of the theatre and its associated technology. The historical Richard was brought into the modern era by the framing, at the beginning and end of the play, of the discovery of his body a few years ago. It gave the play an added depth, especially at the end, and I was quite moved. 

It's been a long time since I've been to a play and I'm glad I saw this one. Our digital screens can bring much to life, but there is a special magic to the best live theatrical productions that cinema or television will never have, and this production of Richard III had that magic. 

Stratford is a lovely little town with many excellent restaurants and sights to see outside of the theatre. We stayed at the Foster's Inn downtown, for the second time, and will stay there again if we return to Stratford.

Featured Links - July 18, 2022

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

• How To Ruin A TikTok Trick With Math. "It's a cool trick, but number theory is cooler."
• The Infamous 1972 Report That Warned of Civilization's Collapse. "The Limits to Growth argued that rampant pollution and resource extraction were pushing Earth to the brink. How does it hold up 50 years later?"
• Estimates of long Covid are startlingly high. Here’s how to understand them. You really, really, don't want to get COVID-19. Get your shots. Wear a mask.
• The Gaia Mission Keeps Unlocking Secrets of the Galaxy. "New data from the ESA’s probe, now eight years into its mission, adds significant detail to its portrait of nearly 2 billion objects in the Milky Way."
• America Is Sliding Into The Long Pandemic Defeat. "In the face of government inaction, the country’s best chance at keeping the crisis from spiraling relies on everyone to keep caring." Another not to be missed article from Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist, Ed Yong.
• ‘Mad’ Mike Hughes’ Last Ride: Inside a Flat-Earther’s Doomed Mission. I find it hard to believe that someone could risk his life trying to prove something so demonstrably wrong, but I guess he never saw a laker sail over the horizon on Lake Superior. 

Photo of the Week - July 17, 2022

Here's a photo of some of the wind damage from the derecho that we had in May. This is in Alex Robertson Park, south of where I live, near the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station. This tree appears to have been cut down after being heavily damaged. Taken with my Pixel 4a.

Saturday Sounds - Blackie and the Rodeo Kings - O Glory

Blackie and the Rodeo Kings are an unlikely success. The three musicians, Colin Linden, Stephen Fearing, and Tom Wilson, got together in 1997 to do a tribute album to the late and much-missed singer-songwriter, Willie P. Bennet. They thought the album would be a one-off but they liked playing together so much that they kept at it, and they became a successful and popular band.

Their latest album, O Glory, was released last week. It continues in the same vein as their wonderful live performances – a musical stew made up of folk, blues, rock, country, and gospel, seasoned with solid and occasionally stellar musicianship. 

If you ever get a chance to see them live, don't pass it up. Their records are good but their live performances are where they shine. 

The June Update from the OED

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is the dictionary by which all others are judged. You won't find it in bookstores and it's awfully expensive to subscribe to, but your local library probably has it on their website.

It's constantly updated and they published a large set of updates in June with an explanatory article on the blog. If you're fascinated by words and how they evolve, you should have a look at it.

The latest update to the OED includes over 700 new entries and senses. These range alphabetically from the East African ahoi (a person or body of people given the right to cultivate a plot of land without payment) to zooarchaeological (of, relating to, or designating animal remains recovered from an archaeological site). Our new entries span more than a thousand years chronologically, from the obsolete adverb aninne (within, inside, into, first recorded in the Old English translation of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History in the early tenth century) to the early 2010s neologisms sportswash and sportswashing, referring to the use of sport or sporting events in promoting a positive public image for a country or organization, distracting from other activities considered to be unethical, illegal, or otherwise controversial.

 Among other things, this update reveals that the phrase cringe factor was first used by the late Clive James in a review of the British television game show The Krypton Factor when it first aired in 1977. As a standalone noun, cringe has been used colloquially to refer to acute embarrassment or awkwardness since at least 1984, while the corresponding adjective cringe (‘it was so cringe’) is recorded from 2001. A new entry for public service announcement traces this phrase back to a 1948 report on public service broadcasting and the running of non-commercial ‘plugs’ for community causes on U.S radio stations; more recent humorous, mock-formal use is represented by a 2007 twitter posting advising against drinking a popular brand of energy drink immediately after brushing your teeth because ‘it’s gross’. You can also find out which of two competing pieces of British rhyming slang for—ahem—‘drunk, intoxicated’, Brahms and Liszt and Mozart and Liszt, is recorded earliest.

Featured Links - July 11, 2022

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

• The Seeds of Political Violence Are Being Sown in Church. "The new insurrection is being organized, in a sanctuary near you."
• THE JACKPOT: How London Became A Concierge for Kleptocrats. "Novelist Cory Doctorow tracks Britain’s domestic scandals back to the capital’s reliance on laundered money from overseas, and the feasting of so many professions on the proceeds."
• ‘Frankly it blew my mind’: how Tron changed cinema – and predicted the future of tech. "From cyberspace to AI, Steven Lisberger’s 1982 sci-fi classic was way ahead of its time. The team behind it explain how they made a game-changer."
• Stress busting and smoking hot: the OED June 2022 update. "The latest update to the OED includes over 700 new entries and senses. These range alphabetically from the East African ahoi (a person or body of people given the right to cultivate a plot of land without payment) to zooarchaeological (of, relating to, or designating animal remains recovered from an archaeological site)."
• ‘It’s not going to be as sexy’: Boca Chica looks toward a SpaceX future less lofty than it’d hoped. The Cape may become the major SpaceX launch facility, with major effects on the south Texas economy.
• Microbes May Hold the Secret to Creating More Powerful Rocket Fuel. "An anti-fungal molecule produced by the Streptomyces bacteria could enable supercharged biofuels."

Photo of the Week - July 10, 2022

This rose is in our front yard. When we bought our house, there was a rose bush that produced huge, beautiful orangeish-pink flowers. After an especially heavy winter, it stopped blooming. My wife tried taking a cutting and getting it to regrow in a different spot. Finally, last year, it started to bloom again. We're glad to have it back as the roses are beautiful. This was taken with my Pixel 4a.

  

Saturday Sounds - Billy Strings with Trey Anastasio - June 29, 2022

Billy Strings is one of the most interesting new, younger musicians I've come across in a while. He's a ferociously talented bluegrass guitarist who incorporates elements of country, rock, and out-there jamming into his music. 

Here's part of a recent performance from New York where he is joined by Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio for a few songs. You may want to just listen to this one as the video is shot from the audience and is more than a bit wobbly. But the sound seems to be from a webcast feed and the music is wonderful.

A Collection of Free Online Tools

TinyWow is a website that offers a large collection of free, online tools for working with PDF, graphic, and text files. For example, for PDFs, there are tools to create, edit, and merge PDF files and to convert them to other formats like text and Word. There are similar tools for manipulating graphic and video files.

All tools are free and if you're worried about privacy, uploaded and generated files are deleted after 15 minutes. 

The only problem with the site is that there are so many tools, it may be hard to find exactly the one you need.  

A List of July SF, Fantasy, and Horror Novels

July looks like it's going to be a big month for science fiction, fantasy, and horror book releases. Gizmodo has a list of 56 new titles. I've looked through it and there's very little that appeals to me, given that about 90 percent of the books are fantasy and horror and many of those are continuations of series. 

There were a few that looked interesting.

• Weird Tales: Best of the Early Years 1923-25 edited by Jonathan Maberry and Justin Criado
• Upgrade by Blake Crouch
• Three Miles Down: A Novel of First Contact in the Tumultuous 1970s by Harry Turtledove

 

Movie and TV Reviews - June 2022

Short reviews of movies and TV shows we watched in June. Despite it being baseball season, we seem to have watched a lot of shows this month, probably because most of them only had a few episodes. 

Movies

• I Want You Back: A slightly better than average rom-com. (Amazon Prime)
• The Contractor: B-grade action flick. I watched it three weeks ago and I cannot remember anything about it. (Amazon Prime)
• Interceptor: The only reason to watch this is to watch a buff woman beat up on a bunch of bad guys. Don't even try to rationalize the plot or your brain will melt. (Netflix)
• Doctor Stange in the Multiverse of Madness: I am mad at myself for spending two hours watching this. I enjoyed the first Doctor Strange movie but this one is just an effects-heavy mess. 

TV Shows

• Bosch: Legacy. This season continues with Bosch being a private detective and his daughter a police trainee. If you liked the original series (I did), you'll like this. (Amazon Prime)
• Obi-Wan Kenobi: This should have been a 2-hour movie. It reinforced my dislike of most of the Star Wars stories. Trying to do character development in what is essentially a fairy tale just doesn't work. (Disney+)
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: It is very much a modern version of the original series without the darker elements that showed up in Discovery. So far it hasn't grabbed me. I do wish producers would stop trying to recreate the past and move on to something new. Written SF moved on a long time ago. 
• Stranger Things, season 4: I do hope this is the final season. The show has lost the charm of the first couple of seasons. (Netflix)
• Prehistoric Planet: A dead-on recreation of the classic nature films with David Attenborough and dinosaurs. What more could you ask for? (Apple+)
• London Kills, season 3: One of the better British police procedurals.  Almost as intense as Line of Duty. (Acorn TV)
• Fifty Shades of Green: A fast tour of the 50 best gardens in Britain featuring some truly beautiful and unique gardens. I wish it had been spread out over several episodes instead of crammed into an hour.
• Signora Volpe: A British spy takes a vacation in Italy and hijinks ensure. Worth watching for the gorgeous Umbrian scenery if nothing else. (Acorn TV)
• Martin Klunes: Islands of the Pacific. A three-episode travelogue conducted by the actor, Martin Klunes, star of Doc Martin and Manhunt. I enjoyed it a lot. I learned something about a part of the world I will probably never visit and it's gorgeous to look at. (Acorn TV)

Off for the Canada Day Weekend

Tomorrow is Canada Day up here in the Great White North. I'll be spending my time watching fireworks and barbecuing steaks. Nobody will be paying any attention to the internet over the weekend, given that Monday is also the July 4th holiday in the US.

So blogging will resume on Tuesday.

In the meantime, here are some flowers for you to admire.

 

We're Toast 25

This post is a collection of links that support my increasingly strong feeling that the human race (or at least our technological civilization) is doomed. It is part of an ongoing series of posts.

• Planet Hunger: Inside the Global Food Crisis. "Putin — and greedy CEOs — are already putting 20 million people on the brink of starvation. If we don’t make big changes now, we will face mass food shortages."
• Greedflation: Why Your Grocery Bills Are Soaring. "Our food comes from a handful of giant corporations that see any crisis as a chance to boost profits."
• ‘The Fuse Has Been Blown,’ and the Doomsday Glacier Is Coming for Us All. 'New data suggests a massive collapse of the ice shelf in as little as five years. "We are dealing with an event that no human has ever witnessed,” says one scientist. “We have no analog for this”'
• With the end of Roe, the US edges closer and closer to civil war. "The question is no longer whether there will be a civil conflict in America. The question is how the sides will divide, and who will prevail."

Featured Links - June 28, 2022

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

• Astronomers Radically Reimagine the Making of the Planets. "Observations of faraway worlds have forced a near-total rewrite of the story of our solar system."
• Rarely Seen Paintings by J.R.R. Tolkien Portray a Lush ‘Lord of the Rings’ Landscape. "The Tolkien Estate recently published a trove of rare, unpublished art by the famed fantasy author on its website."
• Monkeypox Has Undergone “Accelerated Evolution”, Mutating At Unprecedented Rates. "The ongoing monkeypox outbreak is unprecedented. This research could help to explain why."
• Covid hasn’t given up all its secrets. Here are 6 mysteries experts hope to unravel. Two years into the pandemic, there is still a lot to learn about the virus.
• The 100 Most Popular Emojis Explained. "There are so many emojis, it can be difficult to know what they all mean. Here are the most popular emojis explained."
• State of CSS 2022. "Web styling features of today and tomorrow, as seen at Google IO 2022, plus some extras."
• America Is Sliding Into the Long Pandemic Defeat. "In the face of government inaction, the country’s best chance at keeping the crisis from spiraling relies on everyone to keep caring." Another essential read from Ed Yong.

2022 Locus Awards

The winners of the 2022 Locus Awards were announced last weekend. These awards are voted on by the readers and subscribers of Locus, the SFF genre's news magazine.

These are the awards in the various novel categories.

• SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL: A Desolation Called Peace, Arkady Martine (Tor; Tor UK)
• FANTASY NOVEL: Jade Legacy, Fonda Lee (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• HORROR NOVEL: My Heart Is a Chainsaw, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga; Titan)
• YOUNG ADULT NOVEL: Victories Greater Than Death, Charlie Jane Anders (Tor Teen; Titan)
• FIRST NOVEL: A Master of Djinn, P. Djèlí Clark (Tordotcom; Orbit UK)

A Master of Djinn also won the Nebula Award for Best Novel this year.

Photo of the Week - June 26, 2022

I saw this basket of geraniums on my walk Friday and was seriously tempted to grab it and take it home. I didn't but I did take this picture to enjoy later. Taken with my Pixel 4a. 

Saturday Sounds - John Mellencamp - Strictly a One-Eyed Jack

I've been listening to and enjoying John Mellencamp's music ever since his Johnny Cougar days. His concert at Maple Leaf Gardens on the Lonesome Jubilee tour was one of the first that Nancy and went to together and turned me into a lifetime fan. (His cover of Richard Thompson's "Shoot Out the Lights" was even darker and more intense than Thompson's version).

His latest album, Strictly a One-Eyed Jack, is solidly in the tradition of outcast Americana music. This New Yorker profile describes it as "blundering, bleak and engrossing", all of which is true. It isn't a happy album, but it's very listenable and fits the mood of our times. Springsteen fans should note that he performs on three songs, including the single, "Wasted Days". 

Public Domain Art from Artvee

If you're a regular gallery or museum goer, you may want to check out Artvee, a site for viewing and downloading public-domain art. You can browse by category (for example, landscapes), movement, culture, or artist, or view curated collections. The collection of NASA Visions of the Future posters is one that I especially liked.

Given that all the art is in the public domain, you won't find much by current or 20th-century artists, but there's certainly enough here to keep you browsing for hours.

Featured Links - June 20, 2022

For some time, I've been using Pocket and Pocket to Kindle to send long articles I want to read to my Kindle. I'm a few months behind on reading them but catching up. This week's Featured Links post collects some articles from late last year that I thought were still worth reading.

• Brian Herbert on Dune: 'My Father Could See Into the Future'. "Frank Herbert’s son is the keeper of the canon and the ultimate defender of his dad’s work."
• I Don't Know That I Would Even Call It Meth Anymore. "Different chemically than it was a decade ago, the drug is creating a wave of severe mental illness and worsening America’s homelessness problem."
• And In the End. "Fifty years ago, the Beatles went through rock’s most famous breakup. Inside the heartbreak, the brotherhood, and why the music still matters."
• The Expanse Authors Were Always Building Toward Leviathan Falls' World-Altering Ending. "James S.A. Corey duo Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck get spoilery about their biggest choices."
• Rothko at the Inauguration. "A story of America in three scams."
  
  

Photo of the Week - June 19, 2022

Here's a picture from my trip to the Sault a couple of weeks ago. It shows the shore opposite my sister's cottage on Goulais Bay, with a large wind farm on the top of the hills. I processed this picture in Adobe Lightroom to bring out the colours.

Fujifilm X-S10 with 16-80 F4 at 45 mm., 1/1600 second at F8, ISO 400, Velvia film simulation.

Saturday Sounds - Drive-By Truckers - Welcome 2 Club XIII

Today's music is the latest album from one of my favourite bands, the Drive-By Truckers. I've been listening to them for more than a decade, although I've never managed to see them live. Welcome 2 Club XIII is rather less political than their last but still has some powerful, intense songs. 

 

2021 Nebula Awards

The 2021 Nebula Awards were announced in May. They are voted on by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (SFWA), the guild for SF and fantasy authors. These are the winners of the fiction awards.

• Best Novel: A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark
• Best Novella: "And What Can We Offer You Tonight" by Premee Mohamed
• Best Novelette: "O2 Arena" by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki
• Best Short Story: "Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather" by Sarah Pinsker

This page has a complete list of the 57 annual Nebula awards.

Movie and TV Reviews - May 2022

Short reviews of TV shows we watched in May.  Between baseball and a month filled with various family events, we didn't watch any movies.

TV Shows

• Outer Range: Think of it as Lost in Montana. I wish the season had been longer so the story could have had more of a resolution. I guess we'll have to wait for season 2. If it goes past that, I'll probably stop watching. (Amazon Prime)
• Nova: High-Risk High Rise. Watching this reinforced my intention never to live above the 10th floor in a high-rise. (PBS)
• Restoring Notre Dame. A documentary on the current state of the restoration of Notre Dame after the fire. It's quite fascinating, especially the segment about the stained glass windows. (BBC)
• Nova: Dinosaur Apocalypse. Several episodes featuring new discoveries about the demise of the dinosaurs. My inner 12-year-old loved it. (PBS)
• Professor T: Another British police procedural featuring an oddball profiler. In this case, he's played by Ben Miller who was one of the leads in Death in Paradise. I probably wouldn't have watched the whole season if it hadn't been for that, as Miller is a very good actor, although he was wasted on the somewhat formulaic plots. (Acorn TV)

Off for a Couple of Weeks

I am back online, finally, after a 2-1/2 day power outage. On Saturday afternoon, we got hit by a major windstorm (a derecho), knocking out power to many areas here. It was the worst storm I've seen here, by far, and it was worse north of us, in Uxbridge, and in Ottawa. I took this picture just before I grabbed the dog and headed for the basement.

Power to much of our neighbourhood came back briefly Saturday evening but had to be cut off again because trees fallen on power lines were catching on fire. Our neighbours three houses over had a tree down in their backyard dragging the power line down to the ground. The other side of the street got power restored Saturday evening, which was good as we could get food, but we didn't get ours back until last evening when Elexicon finally showed up to remove the tree and restore the lines to our side of the street.

We were able to save most of the contents of our freezers by buying some bags of ice, then taking the food over to Nancy's mom's house. Most of the contents of the two fridges have to be tossed. At least the freezers are now defrosted and cleaned.

However, we now have a lot more to do, in a period where we were already busier than usual. We have been helping my daughter and her husband move into their house and they are having their wedding reception this weekend. (They got married last year, but couldn't have the big party they wanted because of COVID-19 restrictions). Along with that, we have our anniversary, my son's birthday, and my mom is in the hospital after a fall. 

So, I'm putting the blog on hold until mid-June. I just don't have the time right now to deal with it, much as I would like to. 

Enjoy the spring and I'll see you in June.

Off for the Weekend

It's the Victoria Day weekend up here in the Great White North, a weekend traditionally reserved for gardening, barbecuing, and pounding back a few cold ones. Weather permitting, I plan on doing all of that, so I am taking the weekend off from blogging and will see you back here on Tuesday.  

Interview with Elon Musk at Starbase

The crew at the Everyday Astronaut YouTube channel have scored another interview and Starbase tour with Elon Musk. If you're curious about the details of some of the SuperHeavy/Starship hardware and what the future holds for the production site at Boca Chica, you will want to see this. This is the Elon Musk that I admire – the steely-eyed rocket man, not the weird billionaire who plans to ruin Twitter. The interview is mercifully politics-free and full of serious rocket geekery. 

We're Toast 24

This post is a collection of links that support my increasingly strong feeling that the human race (or at least our technological civilization) is doomed. It is part of an ongoing series of posts.

Note: I put this topic on hold in March 2020, because of an overload of bad news, mostly relating to COVID-19 and the Trump administration. I'm going to resume posting to this topic to focus my Featured Links posts on other things. 

• Report: 'Carbon Bombs' Are Poised to Screw Us Over Big Time. "Massive planned oil and gas projects are set to derail climate progress, reporting from the Guardian reveals."
• Russia’s Invasion Will Keep Killing Ukrainians for Decades After the War Ends. "From Kharkiv to Chernobyl, activists and government workers are tracking environmental damage they say will have lasting effects on the land — and the people."
• Discovery Of The Source Of World's Largest Methane Pool Is Anything But Good News. "A new study by researchers from Queen Mary College London (QMUL) has recently been conducting research on a record-breaking cache of it within the Pacific Ocean. As they note in the journal International Society for Microbial Ecology, this is the largest marine methane deposit in the world."
• White Ho/use prepares to ration vaccines as Covid funding impasse looms. The government’s funds are running out. Tough decisions may soon present themselves.
• I invented Gilead. The Supreme Court is making it real. "I thought I was writing fiction in The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood."
• Tuvalu, sinking in the Pacific, fears becoming a superpower 'pawn'. 'Tuvalu fears that climate change, an existential threat to the Pacific nation, is being forgotten and it worries that fellow island nations could become "pawns" in a global competition between China and the United States, its foreign minister said.'
• Non-COVID" Excess D. eath Rates Ran 21x Higher In Reddest Counties Than Bluest In 2021. If you want to live, "owning the libs" may not be the best strategy.

Read the Sturgeon Award Finialists For Free

The Sturgeon Awards are an annual award for the best science fiction short story of the year. They're named in honour of the writer, Theodore Sturgeon, who was arguably one of the best short story writers the genre has produced.

Locus Magazine has posted a list of the finalists along with links to the stories so that you can read most of them for free.

• “If the Martians Have Magic“, P. Djèlí Clark (Uncanny 9-10/21)
• “Philia, Eros, Storge, Agápe, Pragma”, R.S.A Garcia (Clarkesworld 1/21)
• The Album of Dr. Moreau, Daryl Gregory (Tordotcom)
• “Broad Dutty Water: A Sunken Story”, Nalo Hopkinson (F&SF 11-12/21)
• “Proof by Induction“, José Pablo Iriarte (Uncanny 5-6/21)
• “The Dark Ride”, John Kessel (F&SF 1-2/21)
• “The Metric“, David Moles (Asimov’s 5-6/21)
• “Sarcophagus“, Ray Nayler (Clarkesworld 4/21)
• “Bots of the Lost Ark“, Suzanne Palmer (Clarkesworld 6/21)
• The Necessity of Stars, E. Catherine Tobler (Neon Hemlock)

Featured Links - May 16, 2022

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

• 10 Simple Design Rules for Professional Microsoft Word Documents.  "Want to create professional-looking business reports or academic papers? Use these tips for formatting your Word documents." I wanted a lot of time at work, applying these formatting tips to documents that other people sent me to clean up. It's really not that hard to do.
• A New, Slightly More Comforting, Explanation For The Absence Of Aliens. "Maybe the aliens aren't here because they prioritized looking after the ecosystems on their home planet ahead of excess expansion."
• The World's "Earliest-Known Temple" Was Built 11,500 Years Ago With Geometry In Mind. "A fresh look at Göbekli Tepe, an 11,500-year-old structural complex in Upper Mesopotamia, has reaffirmed it might just be one of the most mind-blowing sites in human history."
• An Observation on Audiobooks. A post about audiobooks from SFF author, John Scalzi.
• D-Day’s Parachuting Dummies and Inflatable Tanks. A WW II misinformation campaign. 
• The QAnon Queen Told Followers They Didn’t Need to Pay Bills. It Didn’t End Well. "The QAnon Queen of Canada told her followers to stop paying their electricity and water bills because she declared them free. But now the utility companies are calling."
• Vast underground water system helps drive Antarctica’s glaciers. "Scientists have finally found Antarctica’s missing groundwater."

Photo of the Week - May 15, 2022

The dandelions are having a good year, which is good for the bees. We need bees. This is not my backyard, by the way; it's on a boulevard not far from my house. Taken with my Pixel 4a.

 

Saturday Sounds - Arcade Fire - We

Arcade Fire's latest album, We, has just been released, and I quite like it. 

A few years ago, my daughter took me to their concert in Toronto as a birthday present, mostly because Broken Social Scene was the opening act. I enjoyed their set, but would have liked it a lot more if the sound hadn't been a total mess, too loud and sludgy making it impossible to hear most of the words or distinguish the instruments. Lots of bass, though. (The sound for Broken Social Scene, OTOH, was excellent.)

 The sound on the new album is just fine and the music is too.

Locus Awards Finalists

The finalists for the Locus Awards have been announced. The awards are voted on by subscribers and readers of Locus, the SFF field's monthly news magazine. The award winners will be announced on June 25 as part of the virtual Locus Awards Weekend. 

These are the finalists for Science Fiction Novel.

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton; Harper Voyager US)

Leviathan Falls, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

The Echo Wife, Sarah Gailey (Tor; Hodder & Stoughton)

Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro (Knopf; Faber & Faber)

A Desolation Called Peace, Arkady Martine (Tor; Tor UK)

Noor, Nnedi Okorafor (DAW)

We Are Satellites, Sarah Pinsker (Berkley; Ad Astra)

You Sexy Thing, Cat Rambo (Tor)

Shards of Earth, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor UK; Orbit US)

Hummingbird Salamander, Jeff VanderMeer (MCD; Fourth Estate)

I can't comment on the quality of the nominees as I haven't read any of them yet, but I am reading the last of the Expanse books next, probably followed by Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace.

Budget Bytes

I have a New York Times subscription and get a daily email from them loaded with recipes. They look great, but in practice, they tend to be too complicated and use ingredients that I don't usually have at home. This week's Recomendo newsletter pointed me to a recipe site that's much more to my taste, so to speak. 

Budget Bytes bills itself as a place for "delicious recipes designed for small budgets". After browsing the site for a while, I have to say I'm impressed. The site is much more than just a list of recipes. For one thing, it's extremely well organized. As well as being able to find recipes by the usual categories (breakfast, dessert, meat (with subcategories), quick, and so on), there's a page listing close to a hundred subcategories. Even better, there's a much longer list of ingredients used in the recipes that link to all the recipes that use that ingredient. Brillant! And of course, the site is searchable.

Added content includes preparation and cooking tips, meal plans (by paid subscription), how-to tips, suggested pantry staples, and more. There's also an app for both IOS and Android. The recipes are well thought out with clear instructions and include the cost of ingredients (in US dollars) so Canadian users will have to add the exchange. 

I posted about this site on Facebook and one of my friends commented that the registered dietician where she works uses it and recommends it to their clients. 

I expect to be using a lot of their recipes in the coming months. 

Featured Links - May 9, 2022

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

• Last Dangerous Visions Acquired By Blackstone Publishing. After 50 years, it looks like Harlan Ellison's great unfinished project will finally get published.
• Inside the battle on the Eastern Front. "I was given access to a secret Ukrainian base."
• Rechargeable Molten Salt Battery Freezes Energy in Place for Long-Term Storage. "The technology could bring more renewable energy to the power grid."
• China developed a drone swarm that can fly effortlessly through an entire forest. "Inspired by birds, built by students."
• Italian study shows ventilation can cut school COVID cases by 82%. "An experiment overseen by the Hume foundation think-tank compared coronavirus contagion in 10,441 classrooms in Italy's central Marche region."
• They Leaked the End of the American Experiment. "Many of us screamed into the wind about the importance of voting, the cold danger of apathy, the sheer cruelty that would be unleashed, the searing reality that too late is too soon. But we can still reassemble our past and break our present—we have to."
• Sailors say aircraft carrier that had multiple suicides occur among crew was uninhabitable. '"This is the very bottom," he told CNN, speaking of the situation on the USS George Washington.'
• How ‘Big Funeral’ Made the Afterlife So Expensive. "It's time to reevaluate the cost of death care—and its environmental impact." Sadly, this is something that many of us have had to deal with since the before times.

Photo of the Week - May 8, 2022

Here's a tree stump along the Pickering lakeshore. It decays more every year; likely it will have collapsed in a few years.

Fujifilm X-S10 with 27 mm. F2.8 WR at F8, 1/340 second, ISO 400, Velvia film simulation

 

Saturday Sounds - Trey Anastasio Band - April 30, 2022

Today, we have a recent concert from the Sweetwater Music Festival last weekend featuring the Trey Anastasio Band (TAB). Trey is, of course, the guitarist for Phish. As well as being an amazing guitarist, he is a versatile songwriter and composer and has a crackerjack band to feature his material. This is an official recording with pro quality sound and video.

Being a jazz fan from when I started getting into music as a teen, I actually prefer the music he makes with TAB to that of Phish  . It's funky, jazzy, groove heavy, and highly danceable. Turn it up loud and groove to the music!

Note: The video should start at the beginning of the concert, but if it doesn't forward to 15:00 in the video.

Disney Is Evil

This article describes why I won't subscribe to Disney+. (I'm not a big Disney fan anyway, but they do have Star Wars). They maintain that when they bought authors' contracts, they bought the right to publish their works but not the obligation to pay. This is against established contract law and would upend the publishing industry if it became standard practice. And as usual, it's the little guy that gets screwed. #disneyisevil

Kindle to Support EPUB, Sort Of

Amazon has announced that you will soon be able to send EPUB files directly to your Kindle, using the Send to Kindle email address that each Kindle has, or later in the year through the Send to Kindle app. The files will be automatically converted to the current AZW3 format. 

They will drop support for the old MOBI format though files that you have will still continue to work (and I assume you can still sideload them directly from a computer). 

I'll be interested to see how well this works. Currently, I run EPUB files through the Calibre app so I can force justification to flush left (aka ragged right) as fully justified files look horrible at the font size I normally read at. I don't know if the new conversion from EPUB will support changing the default justification. If you know, please leave a comment. I would also like to see the ability to use the Atkinson Hyperlegible font, which my .mobi files don't seem to like, although I can get that working on AZW3 files by using Calibre.

At some point in the next year, I may buy a Kobo reader so I can download library books directly to my device and for the better typographic support offered by Kobo. (I can read library books on my phone or tablet, but would prefer to use an ereader as it's easier on the eyes). 

 

Featured Links - May 3, 2022

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

• Vogelbescherming Nederland - Together for birds and nature. This is a Dutch web site on which you can view webcams of nesting birds.
• How Toronto-based street gangs are terrorizing small-town Ontario. "Cashing in on the endless opioid crisis, drug-trafficking street gangs from the GTA are branching out into rural, northern and First Nations communities—with deadly consequences."
• Balloon detects first signs of a ‘sound tunnel’ in the sky. "Atmospheric analog to ocean’s acoustic channel could be used to monitor eruptions and bombs."
• When Will Humanity Become a Type I Civilization? A New Paper Explores Our Limits. "A Type I species is able to harness energy on a scale equal to the amount stellar energy that reaches its home planet. Type II species can harness energy on the scale of its home star, and Type III can harness the energy of its home galaxy."
• The surprising afterlife of used hotel soap. "Hotel guests leave behind millions of half-used bars of soap every day. A nonprofit is on a mission to repurpose them." I found this absolutely fascinating and wonder why no one ever thought of it before. 
• Google Lens in desktop Chrome can now copy text, translate, and open Images Search. "This could be very handy."
• Finding Neptune: How we discovered the eighth planet. "This ice giant hid from humanity’s view for millennia. But eventually, its sibling planet gave it away." An interesting bit of astronomical history that I didn't know about. 

Movie and TV Reviews - April 2022

Short reviews of movies and TV shows we watched in April. It's baseball season now so there won't be as many as last month.

Movies

• Moonfall: To quote Grace Slick: "When logic and proportion have fallen floppy dead". (Amazon Prime)
• The Green Knight. I was expecting a schlocky action movie and instead got a 70s-style arthouse flick. As usual, the plot didn't make a lot of sense, but it was very moody and evocative. (Amazon Prime)
• Uncharted: It's a decent action flick, with all the usual elements, but the final quarter of the movie strained my willing suspension of disbelief past the breaking point.
• Zeros and Ones: This looked like a B-grade action flick, but turned out to be a dark, moody mess. It does star Ethan Hawke, but he hardly ever speaks. We gave up after half an hour. (Amazon Prime)

TV Shows

• Halo: This is based on the hit video game of the same name. Shows and movies based on video games generally haven't been very good, but this one has high production values and an interesting plot.
• Prime Suspect: Tennison. This series is a prequel to the hugely successful Prime Suspect series with Helen Mirren. Stephanie Martini is quite good as are the minor characters. I do wish there had been another season.
• Nancy Drew (season 2): If there was really this much supernatural stuff going on in a Maine town, it would be headline news all over the world. I would have preferred more mystery and less supernatural.
• Harry Wild: A retired literature professor becomes a private eye solving crimes that appear to be based on books. It's an interesting idea, but it makes the plots even more contrived than usual for this kind of series. (Acorn TV)

Photo of the Week - May 1, 2022

I love the patterns that the branches of trees make before they are obscured by leaves. In a month, there will be a green canopy overhead. Taken with my Pixel 4a.