On this date, 42 years ago . . .

I give you this:

"Here men from the planet Earth set foot upon the moon, July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind."

-- Plaque left behind by the crew of Apollo 11 at the Sea of Tranquility landing site, 1969.07.20

In many ways I am saddened more and more each year as this date passes. America used to do great things.

Now all we do is argue endlessly about why we cannot.

Leslie Fish captured the moment perfectly in the song in this video. Yes, we won the "race to the moon" . . . then rested upon our laurels. Americans used to gaze at the horizon and dream and hope. Now we turn and glare at one another in fear and loathing.

Has this country really become such a small, mean place in the span of just two generations?

I will not go into how this happened. There is plenty of blame to go around . . . but blame never really ever fixes anything.

If you really want to start somewhere, countrymen, start with a mirror and a pair of open eyes..

Bible inscribed on a pinhead . . .

No reaction from the White House on this historic surgery
----------------
Now playing: Roy Zimmerman - Jerry Falwell's God
via FoxyTunes

You heard it here first . . .

MMORPG meets His Noodly Appendage. Film at Eleven.

Storm Front: Book 1 of the Dresden Files

After dinner last night Iz wanted to hit Border's. In the process she turned me on to Jim Butcher's modern wizard / PI Harry Dresden. OK, I'm not a big fan of horror but I really love books where the author works hard to get magic, military tactics / culture and tech right. David Weber (Honor Harrington series), Richard Cornwall (Sharpe's Rifles, etc, British Napoleonic light infantry ), Patrick O'Brien (Master and Commander), and Tom Clancy (The Hunt for Red October is the best modern submarine book ever; only the late Edward L. Beach's Run Silent, Run Deep, set in the Pacific during WW2 is even in the same ballpark) get culture/tactics and tech right -- with a level of detail that some find irksome.

As as lifelong student of military science and technology, I appreciate the details these guys put in their works. I have not been studying magic quite as long -- my first exposure to an author who did it right with respect to magic was only thirty years ago; I've devoted time to more intense study the last fifteen or so. Mercedes Lackey (most especially her Diane Tregarde modern witch books) and Katherine Kurtz (not only the medieval Deryni-verse, but also her modern / WW2 Adept series) are on a very short list that just got longer by one name: Jim Butcher.

I took this book home and figured to give it the "100 pages test" -- if it could hold my interest for 100 pages, then good. Robert Jordan failed that test. Even Terry Pratchett (I know, Iz, I know! TPs a GAWD, but I.just.can't.get.my.brain.around.Discworld. Sorry! I've tried!) did not make the cut. My standards for holding my attention for the first one hundred pages are tough; the masters of the first-sentence grab-of-attention are guys named Heinlein (Starshp Troopers: "I always get the shakes before a drop.") and Howard (something about a guy named Conan being chased across a river, cannot quote it) trained me early.

I stopped on page 168 because I was ready to go to sleep . . . and not because the book was boring. Anything but! Plenty of action, tight plotting, very nicely drawn characters, enough wizard-lore to satisfy this Background Freak, and, yes, Jim Butcher Gets It when it comes to magic and explains it.

Thanks, Iz, for turning me on to a whole 'nother Harry.

Robot's Rules of Order

Amiov's 3 Laws of Robotics may become law in South Korea:

For the Asimov-impaired, the Three Laws appear here.

The most interesating excerpts here:

... The South Koreans are not the only people working on such a code, but others are independent efforts by scientists themselves uneasy at the implications of their work....

This I like; scientists concerned over the social and political dimentions of science. We need more of that.

...The initial findings of one such group, the European Robotics Research Network (Euron) were unveiled last summer, and went as far as raising the question of the ethics of robot sexuality, and whether sex-toy robots should be developed....

And there you have it, straight from the Too-Much-Information Superhighway. Glad to see someone's thinking about the ethics of robot sex toys. This meme adds a whole new meaning to the phrase "hardware upgrade," doesn't it?

How about robotic celebs? They cannot be any more obnoxious that BenKat, Tommifer, K-Fed and the evil that is Brittney. Oops, Hollywood's already done that one

I could go on, but why?