Musings of a Babylon Lurker

So much for freedom and Democracy in France …. hmmm !

Sunday, May 10th, 2009 | general | No Comments

An employee of the French broadcaster TF1 was fired for writing to a member of Parliament …

see this SlashDot article

So he got fired for having an opinion and writing to his MP from his *private* email, not even from his work.

what comes next ?

Tags: censorship, freedom

Looking at Hugo Awards nominees 2009

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 | cons, events, scifi | 2 Comments

This year I decided to become a supporting member of the Worldcon/Anticipation that takes place in August in Montreal, Canada.

With a (supporting) membership of the Worldcon comes the right to vote on the Hugo Awards, the science fiction fans’ own awards.

Not just that, this year a big part of the nominee’s works are made available to the voters, so last week I downloaded the “Hugo Voter’s package 2009″, a zipped file of about 180 MB.

The file contains 4 novels, several novellas, short stories , a graphic novel (as far as I can see, have not opened that file yet), and other contributions, in order to facilitate an enlighttened voting process.

Now I am very happy that I got myself an eBook reader – it would be far too tiring reading that much on the iPod Touch. Still I am not tied to the computer screen, but can read anywhere I want – the Sofa or lazy chair is a good place.

I started reading “Saturn’s Children” by Charles Stross, partly because I expect to see him at a small local con (Fantasticon) in Copenhagen this year.

With 4 novels and all the other material I have a quite sufficient amount of reading to do before the Worldcon, even if I am not going to Montreal. I would like to go to a Worldcon once, especially if it takes place somewhere in (Northern) Europe.

Tags: Add new tag, Hugo Awards, scifi, worldcon

New record for Gamma Ray Bursts

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 | astronomy, science | No Comments

On April 23th the most powerful gamma ray burst ever recorded was detected by the Swift telescope. More about can be found here at NASA’s site.

With that type of bursts we look back in time, this time more than 13000 million years, this belongs to the earliest generations of stars in the known Universe. Impressive.

Tags: astronomy, cosmology, gamma ray burst

Doctor Who Easter Special – super short – spoiler free

Saturday, April 11th, 2009 | Doctor Who, film and tv, scifi | No Comments

I have just been watching the first of the 2009 “Doctor Who Specials”.

I enjoyed the story quite a lot, and had some really good laughs at the more comedic elements. hilarity in a nutshell.

This is one of the things I love with Doctor Who : It tells a good story without taking itself too seriously.

Tags: Doctor Who

Science and imagination

Monday, April 6th, 2009 | blog, science | No Comments

I just stumbled over an article in the “Bad Astronomy” blog, a reply to someone claiming that science is devoid of imagination.

I particularly like the “boiled down” version of the reply :

“Without imagination, science is a dictionary”

since without imagination science (and technology would never have brought us anywhere, certainly we would not be discussing the topic on the Internet.

Tags: imagination, science

Off topic : Teaching Tai Chi Chuan.

Sunday, February 15th, 2009 | off topic | 2 Comments

I did an exam as a Tai Chi teacher this week end – and passed.

The local master of the art in The Hague has made courses for people who want th teach Tai Chi in his name. This means a 2 year long workshop (a day once a month) with a fair amount of self practise.

Since he wants his teachers to uphold a high level, he is quite demanding of his teachers. The is compensated by him being quite the entertainer – even when he is teaching seriously.

He is now in his mid 50′s and knows that, in order for the knowledge he has to be available, he needs people, other than his family, to continue the tradition.

Since I am recovering from an injured shoulder, the movements do not look perfect, but that is apparently compensated by showing knowledge of the techniques in stead.

The first time the exam was held I had just had the injury, so I could not participate. Now the recovery is good enough to pass the exam.

Actually I have been teaching for a while, unoficially, but now I have become “certified”.

It never ends …

In order to stay ahead of the students, the teacher must learn even more, so I will be somewhat busy learning more Tai Chi still. The first level contains modern forms, and the next will be (older) – more difficult – traditional forms.

So much to learn, so little time…

Tags: Tai Chi

Iran Launches a satellite into orbit.

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 | space, technology | No Comments

Today Iran is a member of a very exclusive group of countries – those who have launched satellites into space.
The then Soviet Union launched the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, in October 1957. The United States followed with the successful launch of Explorer 1 in January 1958.
France, Japan, China, the United Kingdom, India and Israel followed later .

The satellite is called “Omid” which means “Hope” in Persian, and carries experimental control systems, communications equipment, and a small remote sensing payload, according to Iranian news reports.

I do find it a bit worrying that a nation with a stated hostile intent towards USA and Israel in particular, and the West in general, now has the capability to deliver whatever type of weapons they have (their secrecy about the nuclear installations, anyone ?) to any place in the world.

It remains, however, quite a feat from a nation to do what they have done, so we must have some respect for their technical abilities. Let us hope that they will learn the lesson of the Cold War – and that they will not start a “hot one”.

Find more information on Spaceflight Now

Tags: satellite, space

The Next Doctor DVD

Sunday, February 1st, 2009 | Doctor Who, film and tv, scifi | No Comments

Watching “The Next Doctor” DVD this week end.

“The Next Doctor” is not about the next Doctor, as one could have assumed from the title. I enjoyed most of it, but I think we have had enough of Cybermen (and Daleks, for that matter) in the last four years of Doctor Who. I do look forward to Steven Moffat taking over, since he has indicated that we will have less of the “old” enemies of The Doctor, and more new adventures.

I enjoyed the story quite a bit, even more so the extra, a one hour long recording from “Doctor Who at the Prom” with a nice show with Murray Gold’s music scores for the series, and appearances of a whole bunch of the “baddies” form the new series. It was a *lot* of fun seeing the reactions of the children in the audience, some of them just enjoying the show, and others looked like they wished there would be a sofa to hide behind.

7/10. on the Lurker’s scale

Tags: Doctor Who

The Next Doctor

Thursday, January 29th, 2009 | Doctor Who, film and tv, scifi | No Comments

Since I was away from here, I missed the Christmas Special of Doctor Who, “The Next Doctor”.

Having missed, I ordered the DVD from Amazon – it has arrived, now for some fun in the week end.

Tags: Doctor Who, film and tv, scifi

The Babylon Podcast is back after the holidays

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 | Babylon 5, film and tv, podcast, scifi | No Comments

The last month the Babylon Podcast has been off, ok, they had a few holiday gifts, so we did not miss it all together.

The editor of the podcast has compiled a set of filk episodes, some good fun with B5 as the subject.

Tim has selected some fine moments from the 2008 Babylon Podcast, with a few mixups etc.

The first Live feed recording on January 7th was canceled, and so was the one on the 14th, the recording was made in the Los Angeles studio, and could not be heard live.

Waiting for the edited podcast was well worth it, however. The news of Majel Barrett Roddenberry’s departure from this world was honored, including an amusing anecdote from Jeffrey Willerth.

We had a beautiful interview with Ed Wasser who plays the mysterious, evil Mr. Morden. He was close to unstoppable in his enthusiasm and has obviously had a great experience with B5.

Tags: Babylon 5, podcast