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 "The Tolkien Estate recently published a trove of rare, unpublished art by the famed fantasy author on its website."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.