The Campblog

I saw some guy on Canada's sci-fi network discussing a possible return to the Moon. The Moon?

The Campblog is not against another moon shot, and the eventual Moon Base Alpha kinda deal. But I was struck though by the comments by the scientist interviewed (didn't catch his name). He claimed that we're running out of oil. We have just another 50 years or so of oil left (Ed: of known reserves, ugh) and that if people think that we're just going to rely on hydrogen fusion for power, we'll need platinum, so we should mine the moon to find the platinum.

What about solar power, Mr. Scientist guy? I understand from my Lomborg reading that solar power is becoming less costly by half each decade and that we should be using it commercially by 2040 or 2050, supplanting non-renewable energy resources. So long, CO² emisions.

But, the return to the moon advocates are trying to use an economic argument for going there. Why discuss solar power? I don't really think a cost-benefit analysis is going to do it; besides, do we have enough information on lunar geography to estimate mineral/metal reserves? Let's go do it because we can. Let's do it because it would be supercool. Let's go do it because we're a species of explorers and inventors and innovators. Let's go do it because the planet could explode some day and we'll need a handful of humans to survive as the Moon gets thrown across the galaxies. Dammit, do we need another reason??

Saturday, July 17, 2004

No Posts

Will be back posting later next week ~ cheers, Dear Reader.

Winston Review of Blogs Link

The Winston Review of Blogs, edition 2, is up. Go check it out.

Summertime Fun Link

Armageddon. Deaths. Signs of the Apocalypse. Grievous Angels.

It's all there over at Switching to Glide.

Don't forget, the STG Summer Glider Drive is still in full force.

Friday, July 16, 2004

Pathetic Link

Dear Reader, you will know by now my love of my hometown, Halifax. I have devoted much effort over the years in building an online tour of the city and its history. Aside from the photographical and technical aspects, it took a great deal of research and reading (not onerous, certainly, as it was a personal interest). If you go to my History of Halifax section and click on 'Visitors', you'll see the following:

The city of Halifax, which has a wonderfully unique blend of the historic and the modern, has grown out of its military past into the thriving modern capital of Nova Scotia. The great harbour has seen countless ships come and go over the years, often to the ebb and flow of the tides of war. Here is some info on just some of those who arrived here by sea to the world’s second largest ice-free harbour.

The First Peoples American Civil War

The First European Explorers The Halifax Explosion

Duc D'Anville Hitler's War

The Founding of Halifax Modern Day Halifax

Royal Visitors Tall Ships 2000 pics

The First Peoples

The harbour at Halifax, once called Chebucktook or Chebucto, first saw human beings many thousands of years ago, following the retreat of the glaciers of the last Ice Age, with the arrival of the Mi’kmaq, an Algonquian tribe which established itself in the area of Nova Scotia and the Maritime provinces perhaps some eleven thousand years ago. The Mi’kmaq (pron. ‘meegh-mah’) who resided at Halifax came there to hunt and fish during summer, and travelled back along the Nova Scotia waterways to the head of the Minas Basin in the Bay of Fundy for the winter months.

For thousands of years, the Harbour would see no other visitors until the arrival of European fishing and exploration expeditions beginning in the early 15th century. Return to Top of Page

The First European Explorers

Samuel de Champlain arrived at the coast of Acadie (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) in 1604. Although he did not stay at Chebucto (Halifax), he referred to it as "une baie fort saine", or "a good safe bay". A French fishing station was established at Chebucto by 1698, on McNab's Island in the middle of the great harbour. At this time, French missionary Father Peter Thury was at Halifax preaching to the Mi'kmaq. He is the first recorded missionary in this area. He celebrated Easter with the Mi'kmaq to coincide with their ancient spring festival. French botanist Diereville arrived in 1699 to obtain plants for the royal gardens. At his arrival at Chebucto on the ship La Royale Paix, three Mi'kmaq chiefs greeted him in canoes, declared themselves Christians and showed him Father Thury's grave.

etc.

My stuff has been on the internet for over four years.

Now head on over to a website called Take Her Sailing dot com and read an article on Halifax Harbour, "Contributed by Mike and Barb Turney, SV Nelleke". It begins:

The city of Halifax, which has a wonderfully unique blend of the historic and the modern, has grown out of its military past into the thriving modern capital of Nova Scotia. The great harbour has seen countless ships come and go over the years, often to the ebb and flow of the tides of war. Here is some info on just some of those who arrived here by sea to the world’s second largest ice-free harbour.

A SHORT HISTORY

The First Peoples
The harbour at Halifax, once called Chebucktook or Chebucto, first saw human beings many thousands of years ago, following the retreat of the glaciers of the last Ice Age, with the arrival of the Mi’kmaq, an Algonquian tribe which established itself in the area of Nova Scotia and the Maritime provinces perhaps some eleven thousand years ago. The Mi’kmaq (pron. ‘meegh-mah’) who resided at Halifax came there to hunt and fish during summer, and travelled back along the Nova Scotia waterways to the head of the Minas Basin in the Bay of Fundy for the winter months.

For thousands of years, the Harbour would see no other visitors until the arrival of European fishing and exploration expeditions beginning in the early 15th century.

The First European Explorers
Samuel de Champlain arrived at the coast of Acadie (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) in 1604. Although he did not stay at Chebucto (Halifax), he referred to it as "une baie fort saine", or "a good safe bay". A French fishing station was established at Chebucto by 1698, on McNab's Island in the middle of the great harbour. At this time, French missionary Father Peter Thury was at Halifax preaching to the Mi'kmaq. He is the first recorded missionary in this area. He celebrated Easter with the Mi'kmaq to coincide with their ancient spring festival. French botanist Diereville arrived in 1699 to obtain plants for the royal gardens. At his arrival at Chebucto on the ship La Royale Paix, three Mi'kmaq chiefs greeted him in canoes, declared themselves Christians and showed him Father Thury's grave.

The TakeHerSailing.com article continues to lift my writing in its entirety -- all 3,150 words of it -- with zero mention of my name or website. The article links to other sections of my Halifax tour (which is how I came across this TakeHerSailing website), but there is no mention of me as the author of the piece or a link to the page from which it is taken; they were merely hyperlinks embedded in my article that they lifted. Oh, it does mention as it's source "Halifax Website" ~ sorry but I'm not impressed. PATHETIC!

You can email them here and express your concerns, as I have done. "Copyright", my ass.

Later: It's cool; I've received satisfaction.

More Moore Link

Vast right wing conspiracy member and Ralph Nader supporter Dave Kopel has prepared a pretty exhaustive list of distortions from F9/11. I'll stop posting about that movie; this one pretty much covers all the bases.

Who Is John Galt? Award Link

The Meatriarchy has announced the first winner of the 'Who Is John Galt? Award'.

Gruesome twosome Link

Alan can't think of a way to address this story; don't blame him. I'll say at least that it's time for some of that creative sentencing we've been hearing so much about.

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Bin Laden buddy nabbed Link

First question, "So, what's been wrong with your pal's video camera these past two and a half years?"

This Land Link

Thanks Damian ~ this is hilarious. From the Liberal wieners to the Rightwing nutjobs, this land belongs to you and me!

Monday, July 12, 2004

The Elegant Universe Link

Dear Reader, I have two Brian Greene books on my 'to read' shelf ~ "The Elegant Universe" and "The Fabric of the Cosmos". I'm trying to make this summer a scientific one. In Slate, Amanda Shaffer states the obvious ~ that Greene is a science writer first and may not stand up as the greatest physicist. I pretty much take it for granted that there may be folks out there who are better physicists or who may have different theories and who could give me all the technical details of these theories. Or they could try. I want to read science written by a good writer -- I don't have the background in physics to get it all; I need someone to use metaphor. I want someone to use romantic language to explain the science ~ nothing wrong with that.

Then again, the criticism of Greene's string theory appear to be coming from the old guard.

Each time Greene is featured or reviewed on television or in a magazine, one of string theory's aged, cranky critics is trotted out to offer harsh assessments. (These seem to have had no impact on the public's fascination.) In the NOVA special, Nobel laureate Sheldon Glashow drove home the obvious but downplayed fact that string theory has not been—and may never be—experimentally verified, and that it may be more philosophy than physics. More recently, in the New York Review of Books, Freeman Dyson, an octogenarian and self-proclaimed "old conservative, out of touch with the new ideas," suggested that string theory may simply be one of history's "fashionable" ideas, the kind that flourish briefly, then forever fade away. Glashow and Dyson raise important points. But in the eyes of a captivated public, such reservations appear to be little more than theoretical technicalities.

Dyson ~ you know, as in the Dysonsphere episode of Star Trek: TNG (with James Doohan).

I'm not sure that this is stuff that Greene would disagree with; nor will this member of the "captivated public" necessarily view Greene's theories and discussions as gospel. But Greene does have an advantage over the others ~ if you are passionate, can reach the public and do so with strong writing and effective explanations, then your theories are going to at least be considered on par with other ones.

Shaffer writes that Greene uses a "pandering sort of lyricism".

True, Greene's technical explanations are often effective. Yet the strain of romanticism that emerges—and ultimately becomes inextricable from the discussion of string theory—necessarily raises questions. Greene plays fast and loose with terms like beauty and elegance, using them in a semiclassical, semiromantic sense, with little distinction between equations and the "reality" they may represent.

In Greene's view, an equation that funnels vast complexity into a simple, logical formulation is elegant; a universe that conforms to such an equation is elegant and therefore beautiful as well. In essence, he follows in the tradition of Einstein, who famously said, "Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler." Greene himself is even more explicit: "The tantalizing discomfort of perplexity is what inspires otherwise ordinary men and women to extraordinary feats of ingenuity and creativity; nothing quite focuses the mind like dissonant details awaiting harmonious resolution." Greene treats scientific work as a kind of poetic quest, and beauty as crucial evidence of truth.

Beauty as evidence of truth? Really? Though I haven't read about this stuff yet, I have a feeling it would be more like 'here's the theory of what's true, and this stuff is beautiful'. Still, it's no secret that we humans see beauty in the natural world, of what we know to be true about nature. If string theory seems beautiful to us, then perhaps we can agree on it as evidence.

We'll see if I change my tune once I've read his books, but I applaud Greene's style. His style is in fact the point. The vast majority of people are not going to make the efforts to understand these things; true, the vast majority don't even care about stuff that Greene will write. Still, providing a bridge to this mysterious world is where Greene's value lies; he demonstrates the purpose of a writer, any writer. Maybe he's wrong, but I appreciate the opportunity to learn of these theories and to consider them for myself.

(via AL Daily)

Thursday, July 1, 2004

Summer Glider Drive Link

Let the word go forth, from this time and place, that Switching to Glide (Canada's best music blog, from what I've heard) has started its Summer Glider Drive. We need more bloggers over there, so if you know anyone who might be interested in blogging about music (Canadian scene, by genre, local scene, what you like, what you hate, industry news, record reviews ... even exclusive interviews with artists) or if you post about music to your own blog occassionally and would like to get the keys from Dave so you can cross-post to STG, well the Switching to Glide Summer Glider Drive is For You.

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