July 21, 2010, 1:14 pm
Without even having read the book, the blurb for the The Annunaki Enigma Armageddon 2010 is enough to make me sure that it would quite a disaster. I definitely would not have seen it if I weren’t subscribed to the science fiction section at Fictionwise, but the blurb was so much of a train wreck that it was hard to ignore:
Somewhere near the end of the year 2012 world governments are on the precipice of all out war. The United States has become a socialist state — a part of a “One World Order”. The global economies are falling apart and there is an effort to correct a pseudo-scientific theory that the world is suffering from global warming brought on by the industrial countries. The politicians have attempted to create a significant revenue source by correlating the warming theory to the burning of carbon-based fuels. A carbon tax is invented and those in power are pleased. This adds further injury to the failing world economies. As this cataclysmic series of events further destroys the once vigorous monetary systems of the world, healthcare in the United States becomes state run. …
And this is only half of the blurb! It might actually good if it were a satire, but it doesn’t appear to be one. With the entire blurb basically a litany of extreme ideology (and quite a bit of delusional ideology at that), along with the complete absence of any indication of a plot, I have to wonder what the blurb writer was thinking. Did he (or she) really think anyone would want to read the book after that blurb?
June 25, 2010, 2:38 am
Today, I turn out to be the user of the day at Einstein@Home. It might not amount to much, but I’m still getting all tingly inside.

If you happen to have idle CPU cycles left over on your computer, consider contributing them to the cause of finding gravitational waves or potential sources of gravitational waves at Einstein@Home.
March 24, 2010, 3:02 pm

VSS Enterprise
VSS Enterprise, aka WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo attached together, succeeded in completing its first flight. The test flight only checked out that the mothership, WhiteKnightTwo, can fly properly while carrying the spaceship, SpaceShipTwo. It did not test if SpaceShipTwo will detach properly from WhiteKnightTwo during actual flight. Neither did it test out the rocket engine on SpaceShipTwo that will blast it into space. And even if all the tests succeed without a glitch, SpaceShipTwo will only achieve suborbital flight, being unable to accelerate to a high enough speed to achieve orbit. So the news is only interesting rather than exciting.
Still, it is a great first step towards suborbital space tourism, where reaching the boundaries of space would be a very expensive dream instead of a complete pipe dream to an ordinary person like myself.
March 14, 2010, 11:04 pm
3.
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Happy π Day!
February 19, 2010, 12:31 pm
With the installation of the cupola attached to the Tranquility module on the International Space Station, I know what I will definitely be taking a look at if I ever visit the space station. (I can dream, can’t I?) With its much more open view compared to the tiny viewports that were already on the space station, the cupola provides a beautiful platform for looking outside at Earth or at space.
Continue reading ‘Cupola on the ISS’ »