To Fly
Today I flew an airplane. A real one, with me and 3 other people inside. It was incredible.
There is a local flight instructor who will let people take up and fly one of his planes for an hour, for a reasonable fee. (The instructor handles the actual landing part, which I was just fine with.) Our roommate Starr thought that would be a grand birthday present for me, and after delays caused by holiday and weather, I took the Piper Warrior into the air. Hampton Roads is pretty amazing from up there; Norfolk and Virginia Beach seem like one contiguous urban area when you drive through them, but are quite discrete from 2000 feet.
Working the yoke and the rudder pedals at the same time is a little more difficult than I’d expected, though I did get compliments from the instructor relating to my basic knowledge of planes and aerodynamics. He said that even a couple hours on Microsoft Flight Simulator or the equivalent saves him a great deal of explanation during one of these “discovery flights”.
Of course, the deal is partially an attempt for the instructor to sell me $6000 worth of pilot’s license training. I’m not saying I wouldn’t like the idea, and I might do so in the future… but not right now.
Nevertheless, the idealist in me had a grand time. In 1903, the Wright Brothers made their historic flight; just over 100 years later, a Trek geek with a few bucks (or with a friend with a few) can take a plane into the sky and fulfill the dreams of thousands of his ancestors.
It’s easy to forget how surrounded we are by miracles.
IMDB Justice and the STS
Wil Wheaton is reviewing old ST: TNG episodes for a website known as TV Squad. He’s just reviewed Justice, and my trivia sense tingled; Brenda Bakke, the half-naked actress who gleefully welcomes Worf as the “Huge One”, also played Nim, the Texas Air Ranger in Gunhed.
This, of course, contributes nothing at all to your day.
Slighlty more interestingly, astronomer Phil Plait has posted that tonight’s 9:35 launch of the Space Shuttle will be visible over most of the US’ east coast. A link to a similar opportunity from ’97 suggests that Norfolk viewers might be able to see the STS reach 12 degrees over the south-southeast horizon, while Roanoke area space buffs will only see the engine glow for 5 degrees (possibly discounting intervening mountains).
(I’ll probably forget to go look, though.)
“This could mean the end of the world! … of Warcraft.”
A couple weeks ago, South Park did an episode about “World of Warcraft”. I don’t keep up with South Park, myself – in fact, this was the first episode I ever watched – but I’ll admit there was some funny stuff in it. They got the game references almost completely right. (If you’d like to see it, and haven’t, it’s all over the web, with the apparent approval of the show’s creators. There is one rather unnecessary scatological joke, unfortunately.)
Machinima.com has an article about the episode, where the show creators discuss working wth Blizzard. Among other trivia, the episode was apparently filmed in the Burning Crusade alpha-test server.
Edit: And since I’m discussing the intersection of South Park and geekdom, here’s a parody snippet that we children of the 80’s will find familiar…
Top 50 SF Books meme
This is a list of the 50 most significant science fiction/fantasynovels, 1953-2002, according to the Science Fiction Book Club. Bold the ones you’ve read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put an asterisk beside the ones you loved.
1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien**
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov*
3. Dune, Frank Herbert**
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson*
7. Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
The rest of the top 50
And sell the rest at the Auction House
Quote of the night from World of Warcraft general chat:
Player 1: How do I do [thing that’s clearly impossible in game]?
Player 2: Huh?
Player 3: You can’t do that.
Player 1: Yes you can, I’m sure of it.
Player 4: First, learn the Herbalism skill. Then, pick us all some of what you’re smoking, and we can all go do [thing] together.
More Star Wars Thoughts
Cinemax has been running six-movie Star Wars marathons all month. We just watched Empire while waiting for raininva‘s WoW raid to start… I’m amused by the fact that Vader contributes to his own failures in this story. He’s so determined to be eeeeevil, and show everyone how eeeevil he is, that he pushes Lando too far and loses Luke, Leia, and Chewie in the process. If he’d just backed off a tiny bit, he’d have made a clean sweep.
His lightsaber technique’s a bit shabby near the end, too. Maybe the fact that Luke’s involved is clouding his judgement. To quote Sarek: “My logic falters where my son is concerned.”
I have to keep reminding myself that the Falcon‘s a freighter. This isn’t nit-picking, I’m completely willing to believe that Lando, Han, and Chewie have done things to it that its designers would be horrified by… but watching it fly through those asteroids is like watching a Peterbilt 18-wheeler compete in FormulaOne racing. That’s one heavily-modded cargo hauler!
I mentioned to Rain that the Falcon and the TARDIS have a lot in common… heavily-modified antiques capable of impossible things, but rarely completely functional. This movie also reminds me that the Star Wars universe is a lousy place to be a sentient droid. Clearly, they have pain-analogue circuitry, and feelings to boot, but nevertheless they’re really physically abused and treated like crap by both heroes and villians. Do you suppose Bail Organa ordered memory wipes on any of his other troops that knew of Luke and Leia’s birth?
I play lead for “Rocketship X”
Guitar Hero II arrived in my house this week, thanks to the lovely raininva‘s observance of my birthday. Now, I haven’t had a lot of free time on my hands, and even my gaming is scheduled by priority these days, but ya gotta take some time out of the day to hold a plastic guitar in your hands and rock out to Cheap Trick, The Pretenders, and David Bowie. (I think some of our guests approved more of the Motley Crue and Danzig tracks, though.)
The game’s got a bit more realism than I’d like, though – Rain and I are developing blisters on our fret and strumming fingers.
The book – very little going on. I worked out some background changes to my universe which will allow for more sensible plotting and better conflict, but I’m still not real sure what the ending’s going to be. Clearly, this isn’t going to be done by the end of the month, but then I’m not that worried; I never expected it to. (The base universe is one I created round about 6th grade. It’s weird making changes to something that’s been mostly static in my head for 20-odd years.)
I have several episodes of Torchwood in my hands, but I haven’t finished watching the 2006 Doctor Who season – in fact, as of last night, I’m behind the SciFi Channel’s broadcast (it’s sitting on the DVR). Since I’m reliably informed that the series opener of Torchwood spoils much of the end of the Doctor Who season, this means I’ll have to wait a while longer to get my Captain Jack fix.
Apparently, Rising Star went extremely well this year. Kudos to Cathy and all how worked so hard to pull it off. I think many excellent decisions were made this year, and it bodes well for the future of the con.
I’m burning DVD data discs tonight in a desperate attempt to find clear space on my hard drives.
Trick or Treat!
I was working on a journal post this morning, but my USB 2 expansion card freaked in the middle of that, ruining an iPod update and crashing the computer. So no post.
That’s kinda the tone for the whole month of October. Good things certainly happened, but it’s been pretty rough. My workload’s been amazing – I netted almost 120 hours in one 2-week period. As well, a carefully-arranged Halloween costume failed to materialize; then sickness killed a carefully-planned Halloween party trip.
On the other hand, I was too lazy to put together an interesting outfit for a later party, and wound up just attending in my Enterprise uniform… winning First Place (Men’s), to my surprise!
I’m really bummed about missing Rising Star this year. It sounds like they’re gonna have some fun! But we’ve dropped $700 on car repairs this month, and holiday gift-giving’s on the way, so we have to watch the budget like a hawk. (Here’s hoping I don’t have to replace that PCI card.)
Questionable Content – one of my favorite webcomics, and worth reading through from the beginning – is selling a t-shirt which proclaims, “She Blinded Me With Library Science!” which keeps bringing to mind a certain Yeager crew member.
I did in fact begin NaNoWriMo this week. I have no expectation of finishing in time – the demands on my time are manifest right now – but I’m starting it anyway. This is the closest my head has been in years to having a complete plot and interesting characters lined up, and I’m not giving up now. I may even get around to reposting my WARS stories to elfie, just for my own inspiration.
Taverncast – a WoW podcast – did a Halloween episode called “War of the Murlocs” this year. Despite the fact that I listened to it during the day at work, am closely familiar with the old Orson Welles broadcast, and caught many of the in-jokes, they still managed to creep me out a tiny bit. Maybe it’s my overactive imagination: judge for yourself at war-of-the-murlocs.mp3 if you like. I’ll be having fish for dinner tonight as my own strike back against the slimy rampagers.
Billyuns
Carl Sagan’s Cosmos – on Google Video, and freely downloadable for your desktop computer or in iPod/PSP format.
Yes, he talked funny. Yes, the clothes are so early 80’s. But the man believed that the discoveries and ideals of science were within the reach of anyone who could operate a TV set, rather than the private property of Ph.D.s and research corporations. He spent a great deal of his life backing up his belief with actions.
Though the show is over 20 years old, there’s little that needs to be revised or edited. Though we’ve learned much more about all the subjects he covers, the base concepts are still solid. It’s really worth several hours of your time to watch it, if you haven’t… or to watch it again if it’s been a decade or two. One of my favorite nuggets of information is his observation on organic chemistry: since the birth of the universe produced only hydrogen and perhaps some helium, heavier elements like carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen had to be produced in the fiery deaths of the first suns.
You, me, and every human being who ever lived can claim stars as ancestors. 🙂
And for those who like their science a little more ‘splody, free Mythbusters episodes. It’s more propaganda for such a crazy idea: if you’re not sure whether to believe a story, do your own checking!
