inspiration

Watched some old footage from the Voyager program (yes, I'm an Amazon Prime member, and no, that link may not work if you're not). It's no secret that I'm seriously in love with the outer planets, and Jupiter in particular. I am just stunned that, as much as I've read, as much as I've learned, as much as I've dreamed about these planets, there's still more to learn and understand about them. I mean, look at Uranus for example. Winds in a low-gravity environment can exceed speeds we'd normally understand as being greater than Mach. And yet, because it's low-gravity, it takes less energy for them to get to that speed, and they simply carry on because it doesn't take so much energy to travel at that speed. But we haven't quite figured out what happens with shear, where atmospheric systems converge and the relative speeds are M > 1. Or are they?

And what of the stupendous radiation and magnetospheres out there? Jee-zus, it's a lot to think about.

So, I'm furiously taking notes on the new thoughts that occurred to me (although, to be honest, I'm just basking in the glow of giants, pun perhaps intended). I'm not really ashamed of what I've accomplished in life; I figure I've actually done some pretty cool shit. But I am seriously, seriously outclassed by some people walking the Earth today. Some serious Gallileo shit out there, and I'm just trying to write machine learning algorithms and ding idiot customers for not conforming to government-supplied standards. Seriously, I tried hard, but these people are just fucking gods.

new books

• Jorge Luis Borges, The Aleph and Other Stories
• Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths 
• Adam Warren, Empowered
• Polly Samson, Perfect Lives
• Charlie Stross, Scratch Monkey

Global warming

I'm not sure exactly where I sit on the global warming debate. It has kind of taken on the look of a religion, for both sides of the argument. However, there is a very clear answer for what seems to be happening, at least in Russia.

Climatic weapons are very primitive, but reliable. U.S. round stations in Alaska, Greenland and Norway can create powerful antenna fields and send this intensive radiation to American satellites.
 
A huge ion lens had been created over the East European Plain, which is confirmed by the data from our Russian scientists that the ozone layer in the region was depleted by 43%.

This anomaly is clearly artificial. Also, when this powerful ion lens was created by U. S satellites, powerful solar ultraviolet and hard cosmic radiation was registered.
 
A so-called geophysical weapon has also been used by Americans, and the Earth began to warm up from inside on the territory of Russia.

The U.S. climatic weapons were destroyed by Russian military on July 20, after which it rained all over Europe, and temperatures returned to normal. As you may recall, there was also a very hot weather - 40-45 degrees centigrade - in Europe in July, and no rains at all. But after July 20, it rained in Europe and in Russia, literally during the first hours after the U.S. climate weapons were destroyed.

There's a whole lot more to read, of course.

Yeah, yeah, Libya.

I have to wonder about the furor surrounding Libya. I understand it's a nutcase bombing his own people. But people have been using helicopter gunships against civilians for years in Darfur. I mean, that isn't mentioning the mounted troops that have been terrorizing people there. So what makes Libya special? Can it really be as simple as oil? I've always found the "blood for oil" arguments to be entirely cynical and largely ignorant of what's really going on (seems to me people change their opinions once they get briefed on something). But what, really, is the difference between these two states in terms of human cost and crimes against humanity?

pharmocracy

[ an apoplectic rant goes here ]

Marriott, again

Bill Marriott talks about building the Marriott Marquis NYC.

more acquisitions

• Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, Jonathan L. Howard
• The Third Bear, Jeff VanderMeer
• The Narrator, Michael Cisco

Yeah, I've been on kind of a VanderMeer tear lately, and it's kind of inexplicable since I seem to like about 2/3 of his books. Which, I guess, is better than my ratio with Stephen Baxter… but Baxter's books have a somewhat lower cost of admission. Finch was kind of slow and hard to finish up until the end, when the book seemed to change in pace and tone. I would have preferred the book to have been written in one style or the other, but both was hard to finish. That having been said, I've read a lot of drek lately, and Finch is not in that category. Not by a long shot. Notably, I finally just put down The Star Fraction because I realized I didn't like reading it and I was only reading it to figure out what the author was trying to set up for the – get this – next three books.

I realize MacLeod is well-regarded (by Banks and Stross even), and I worry that I'm becoming somewhat jaded. My tastes have changed pretty substantially in the last few years, and I'm starting to read a lot more conceptual and post-modern fiction. It's unfortunately made something of an impact on my writing, too, and this kind of bothers me. In particular, Vurt and The Raw Shark Texts, and to a lesser extent Angel Dust Apocalypse have all kind of changed the way I write and read. And of course, VanderMeer has factored into that with his Ambergris Cycle, as well. And if I want to be honest about it, House of Leaves fits in there too.

The thing that tweaks me is that I didn't really feel like I liked a lot of these books. I certainly didn't like The Raw Shark Texts; I found it kind of tedious. I slogged through House (although I absolutely loved it). Vurt was absolutely disgusting in many ways. And of course with VanderMeer, I have this love-hate relationship where I keep reading despite not really liking what I'm reading. It seems, though, that somehow these works are all important, and I would somehow be remiss by not reading it and taking on a part of it.

Lately I don't know what to make of my writing. It bothers me in that it doesn't feel like my own voice. Technically, it's some of the better writing I've done. It's more complex in a lot of ways. But it's also over-wrought and affected. I really am not into writing like that, and yet when I sit down to write, it seems to be what comes out lately.

I am sure none of this affects anyone reading this. It should, however, be useful for me to look back on down the line, when I figure out what some of this work means, whether it be my own or what I was reading over the last few years.

Shriek reviewed

As I wind my way through Finch, people may be interested in this review of Shriek (also). I'm quite impressed by the review, to be frank. The book was great, and I think it may be the best of the cycle. I reviewed it on Shelfari, but didn't go to quite the lengths the other reviewer did.