Heuristic

Never let anyone tell you that science isn’t cool!

(Via Corante)

I’d like to write something about the oil spill: the greed and neglect of safety regulations and common sense that led to the explosion, the lack of contingency planning, the destruction of the ecology of an entire region, the tremendous potential long-term effects, the complete lack of viable and immediate alternative to oil.

But I can’t. So instead, you get kittens. I don’t mean to make light of anything involved in the oil spill, but sometimes black humor is all there is.

(Via Dangerous Minds)

For more serious and thoughtful consideration, I’d like to point you to Cherie Priest’s musings on the spill and on ways to help.

I haven’t been writing much for the blog because I’ve been writing for other projects:

• A Crossed Genres Science in My Fiction article about satellite images I neglected to tell you about when it came out (I was out of town - sorry!).
• My application for Viable Paradise. I made the wait list last year, and am determined to turn in the best possible application this year.
• One of my resolves for the year was to be more diligent about submitting new stories and resubmitting ones that had been rejected. I’ve not been as good about that as I’d like, but I did revise and submit a couple lately. And I sold one! (Details to follow.) I have another out (to someplace out of my league, but why not?), and am sending something to Rigor Amortis, a zombie romance/erotica anthology.

Thus, not much writing brain or time left for blogging. I’m having a little bit of trouble balancing everything, and blogging tends to fall off the bottom of the list.

Last century a cartoon appeared on lab doors: “Save the world. Teach your dog to photosynthesize.” It wasn’t a joke now. No dogs though, because fur interfered with solar absorption. Alexander popped a marshmallow into his mouth, his sweet tooth not satisfied by the sugars he made himself. Scientists had experimented on themselves for centuries, sidestepping permission and derision alike. How else to know if the models, the naked mice, the years of work had succeeded?

His deep green skin provided all the carbohydrates he needed, though he still craved proteins and minerals. No more would starve because corn fed machines instead of people. He put up the latest microscope images with clothespins: chloroplasts embedded in his epidermis. He lifted one of his chlorophyllaceous mice from its sunlamp and stroked it.

The airborne spores would solve all the world’s energy problems. He just needed enough land for 9 billion people to sunbathe.

“The American academic scientist earns less than an airplane mechanic, has less job security than a drummer in a boy band, and works longer hours than a Bolivian silver miner,” notes Philip Greenspun, a humorist, pilot, prolific blogger, a doctorate in electrical engineering and computer science, and a software engineering teacher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

And it’s worse if you’re female. Read more of the article at Inventor’s Digest. This is something I have some personal experience with, and some strong feelings about, and a problem that a lot of people don’t even recognize.

Changing the subject completely, this article on “Create, Connect, and Consume” was fascinating. The basic premise is that creative professionals interact with the world in three ways: creating their own art, connecting with people, and taking in information from elsewhere. All three are necessary, and the things we devote time to should serve one or more of those areas.

And a third and final topic switch: from an interview with Mike Resnick reprinted at Suvudu:

Athans: Please define “fantasy” in 25 words or less.

Resnick: Fantasy is fiction that purposely and knowingly breaks one or more of the known laws governing the universe.

Athans: Please define “science fiction” in 25 words or less.

Resnick: Science fiction is concerned with an alternative past, an altered present, or an imagined future and obeys the known laws governing the universe.

Nice short definitions, as you might expect from Resnick. But I’d go further and add that anything that sounds like science but has no justification is really fantasy. As Russ Colson says, if you can substitute the word “magic” into the sentence and have it make just as much sense, you aren’t really writing science fiction.

If you only read one article about the Peter Watts case, it should be this one.

Dr. Peter Watts, author and marine biologist, will not be going to jail. He is however a convicted felon now and will not be allowed to return to the United States from his home in Canada.

I’ve mentioned this before, if you need a refresher.

I’m relieved that Dr. Watts received a suspended sentence, and angry that he was convicted at all.

Three writing links for you, all on fiction things that I’ve been working on.

• Fire up your fiction
• Danger signs
• Cutting words

And finally, a bit of self-promotion that I should have put up here on Friday. My latest Science in My Fiction post went up Friday: Worldbuilding with real worlds. It looks like this will be the first in a series of worldbuilding ecology articles. Anything you’d like to see?

So you all know that I’m writing for the new Science in My Fiction group blog, right? And you’re all reading it and commenting regularly, right? And you will definitely read and leave comments on Friday when my next post goes up, right?

But did you notice the contest??? Short fiction based on current science, with substantial prizes? Deadline is June 30. You’ve got time to do some research and write some fiction.

The editors want to put together a print edition of the winning stories. Wouldn’t that be great? But they’ve got to get enough pre-orders to pay for it, otherwise the print edition just won’t happen. Please consider pre-ordering a copy, and perhaps throwing in a few extra dollars to get more Science in your Fiction.

If you haven’t seen this picture of volcano and lightning, you need to.

There are plenty more volcano pictures with varying degrees of Doom on Flickr.

And finally, if any of you are on Twitter, I’m looking for people to play Fallen London with (called Echo Bazaar formally, I think). It’s clever, not very time-consuming, and attractive. Certain tasks require having friends play too.

If it’s Thursday this must be… some hotel room.

Last week was talking about science in Georgia, at my favorite annual science conference.

This week is training sessions for field sampling. Once in a great while I get lucky and get to send a national crew out to do my work for me. Sort of: it isn’t my work exactly, but I was involved in designing the national sampling protocol, and I will be analyzing and writing up certain sections of the results.

I will shortly have to pack up and check out before the last day of training, but I have just a couple minutes to check in.

So what’s on my list after that? Not so much travel, but plenty to do.

Pack up a bunch of Stringpage orders. This has been the busiest-ever week for number of orders, and I’m out of town. (I clearly state several places on the page that I may take up to a week to ship, two weeks if you’re ordering things that must be dyed.)

Work exciting new research material into novel. I’ve known where the plot goes for a long time, but have been flailing on some other aspects. Solution seems to have been to step back, think through the worldbuilding again, do some extra research. I’ll know when I start rewriting. I’d like to use this one for my Viable Paradise application, so I want it to be right.

Put together my next Science in My Fiction post, for April 23.

Finish the new short story.

Send previous short story back out. (Finally completed the revisions!)

Pin down plans for trip to Albuquerque in July. I’m teaching at a weaving conference. And also, work on my class.

Make up my mind on World Fantasy Con in Columbus in October. It’s within driving distance, and would be a good thing for me to do.

Plus, you know, day job and house stuff and yard work. Cat snuggling. The usual. Right now, I’ve got to get going. Long day of standing in cow pastures ahead.