Dream A Dream
“What are your dreams?” I was asked. I couldn’t answer – I wasn’t sure.
I’ve been spending a lot of years focused on making it to the next day. If I thought extremely far ahead, I made plans for two weeks away. I’m not saying it was a daily struggle for food and shelter – I’ve been fairly comfortable the whole time. My dreams got little thought, though. I was busy.
What have my dreams been in the past?
– I wanted to be a starship crewman. (Well, I’m working for NASA. Not bad.)
– I wanted to be an experimental particle physicist. (Less interesting to me now as a career, plus I’d need to devote something like 15 years to catch up to that horse.)
– I wanted to be a well-known movie and TV actor. (I’m having plenty of fun, and eating better, doing that as an occasional hobby.)
– I wanted to be an airplane pilot. (After my trip up two Novembers ago, I’ve decided to go after my license as soon as my slowly-increasing savings will support that.)
– I wanted to be a well-known novelist. (Still not impossible, though I’ve done pathetically little toward that dream in the last years.)
There are one or two others, but those are the oldest ones. The next question is, what are my dreams for the future? It looks like some of those carry over, but I ask myself now not only what I want to be, but what do I want to do? (A clearly related matter.)
Worth some introspection.
Tweets for Today
- 09:02 @snidegrrl: great job acing that final – woo! #
- 09:03 Humid and warm this morning. Will be claening the apt. tonight, but got TSO tickets tomorrow! #
- 14:26 I am indoors. It is 75 degrees outside right now. Why am I indoors? #
- 17:46 Thought my concert tickets had gone missing. Just found them again. BIG sigh of relief. #
- 23:11 Just watched Science Channel video of people doing repairs on the Empire State Building’s spire. Vertigo- and nausea-inducing. #
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Birthday presents
Got some cool stuff from Starr for my birthday… a refractor telescope, a black tee with a handcuff graphic (“I can’t believe I’m buying you another black t-shirt”) and… this!
Can you guess what it is (besides an afghan, of course)?
Radio Telescope Ga-Ga
I quote the Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait:
“Most people are surprised — I was when I first heard — that Brian May is actually a scientist. He had just started working on his PhD thesis when he got distracted by his guitar playing in some band or another. But he knew was gonna be a big man someday.”
His thesis is entitled Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud, and it seems he now has his degree. I only hope the “Flight of the Hawkmen” theme played as he accepted the honors.
This is just… excellent.
The Sound of the Universe
I have all of Doctor Who season 3 on my Mac. I have most of it on the DVR. So it was about time for me to get around to finishing season 2.
The last four episodes restored my interest in the Tenth Doctor, and I’m looking forward now to seeing “Runaway Bride”. While I had nits to pick, these scripts really engaged me again, and I honestly think that this season’s two-part finale is stronger than season 1’s.
But I have to say that I’m pretty divided about episode ten. The episode was clearly about science-fiction fandom, and I understood all too clearly the points it was making from that angle. But the last bits with the guest lead and his grilfriend were wrong in so many ways… and I mean that seriously, not in that rueful fun manner.
By Klono’s carballoy claws!
I love E.E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensman series. Many of the reasons why I love it are succinctly expressed in the comments to this other user’s LJ entry, in which jordan179 discusses all the SF cliches that Smith practically invented.
One of my favorite comments to the entry is: “When I read a lot of modern science fiction of the “doomed to disaster” variety, I often think that what the characters in the story need is an E. E. “Doc” Smith or John W. Campbell Engineer-Hero to come along and knock the problem on its head a few times.” I talked about this in my “zombie horror” entry. Too many SF / Fantasy characters these days have already given up, and won’t even try to do something about the horrible situation they’re in.
This lead me to the following link: “The Doom that Came to Necropolis”. Imagine a Cthulhu Mythos story starring a square-jawed man of Science! who won’t be cowed by shadows in the dark…
Podcast review: Astronomy Cast
Today, as I drove to work, I plugged the iPod into the car stereo and listened to an episode of Astronomy Cast. (iTunes link)
Astronomy Cast bills itself as “your facts-based journey through the cosmos”. There are few surprises in the podcast for a hard-core space geek, but the presentation is good and the content accessible to almost anyone listening. The science expert for the show, Dr. Pamela Gay, becomes excited and passionate when talking about her fields of expertise, but seems ever so slightly impatient any other time. Overall, it’s entertaining and informative, and it’s usually one of my first listening picks.
Today I heard pretty useful advice about purchasing binoculars and telescopes for casual amateur astronomy – useful because I think there’s a telescope in my near future. (Suffolk is a short drive away and has nicely dark skies.) The previous episode, however, made *me* impatient; 30 minutes pointing out that higher dimensions, alternate universes, black holes, and FTL travel really do none of the fun things that science-fiction writers come up with. Hey, kids, human exploration will be over as soon as we land on the remaining solar planets – after that, it’s all data analysis! Check out this set of spectra!
I admit, based on what we know right now, all that’s probably true. But scientists have thought before that little remained to know, then been forced to change their minds when something new poked though the statistics. I’ll acknowledge the validity of thier statements for now, but I’m not yet ready to give up the dream of yearly trips to Alpha Centauri! In the meantime, the “serious scientists” need to stop being such bummers. Carl knew better.
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.)
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!
