Protean, elusive, capable of great good and appalling evil, but mostly harmless
screen capture by jacob
Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune accompany the Sun as it sets, captured this evening soon after sunset using Google Sky Map.
ADDENDUM
Below is the (more or less) same view as above using Stellarium on a desktop PC.
screen capture by jacob
Labels: astronomy
posted by Jacob A. Stam at 3/17/2012 08:15:00 PM
Father Park at
20/3/12 10:40 AM Caz at
23/3/12 4:48 PM
at
24/3/12 12:35 AM Father Park at
24/3/12 11:06 AM Caz at
24/3/12 1:09 PM at
25/3/12 8:28 AM Caz at
25/3/12 7:18 PM Father Park at
25/3/12 9:47 PM
8 Comments:
Don't follow "star maps"....
Oooh, pertty.
They won't crash, right?
Prometheus looks like it could be an interesting diversion. Then again, like any sci fi other than 2001 it's bound to disappoint. Kubrick and Clarke set the bar too bloody high.
I see Ridley Scott has reprised his Alien skimpy underwear scene, with Sigourney replaced by a younger starlet (and good on her!). But where's Jonesy?
Caz, they haven't crashed in all the millions of millenia since they went a-wanderin'. But of course that's no guarantee. Hume's Law, or something...
Ripley for President. Weaver must have launched a million feet into Reeboks in that film.
You're a little hard to please Jacob! I've always thought Scott's original Alien a pearler - particularly as the critter is hardly revealed until late in the piece.
This new thing, whilst appearing as a prequel, is said not to be directly related; in as much as those, by now, overworked critters are seemingly not in it. The "horseshoe" spacecraft and its chest split occupant is the closest it comes seemingly.
On an entirely tenuously linked topic:
A previously unpublished novella by Kurt Vonnegut will be released on Friday by RosettaBooks, close to 60 years after it was written, the publisher said on Thursday. The 22,000-word novella, “Basic Training,” was rejected by the Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940’s, long before Mr. Vonnegut had become famous through works such as “Slaughterhouse-Five” and “Cat’s Cradle.” After Mr. Vonnegut died in 2007, a trove of his unpublished work remained in Indiana, where he was born. RosettaBooks chose the novella from hundreds of other works that Mr. Vonnegut’s literary executor had made available.
A statement by RosettaBooks described the novella as a book that demonstrates Mr. Vonnegut’s “trademark grand themes: the lunacy of kings, the improbability of existence, the yearling hero’s struggle with duty and love and the meaning of heroism.”
It will be released exclusively through Amazon as a Kindle Single at a cost of $1.99.
You're probably right, Father Park. It's just that the typical sci fi winds up as not much more than a chase movie or shoot-em-up. But okay, those are timeless human themes so maybe I ought to lighten up.
I did and still do love the original Alien. Always room for quibbles, of course, such as how it was just assumed human technology had mastered artificial gravity -- no 'carouseel' required, now that's cool! But its appeal will always be more visceral than intellectual.
Caz, interesting but the big question there would be: Would Mr Vonnegut have approved and wanted it out? I guess he did back in the 1940s, but would he now? Perhaps if the kindle release takes off it'll go into print.
Jacob - what struck me was that "hundreds" of unpublished works were "made available" ... and only one was pulled from the Vonnegut slush pile.
It seems that, more likely than not, he would be none too thrilled.
Of course, it's impossible to know any artist's intent when they leave unfinished or previously unseen works behind, and if they left no guidance / instructions - is the trove for historic purposes and future biographers, or for public consumption?
You'd expect artists to destroy works if they don't want them used and abused, but lack of destruction can't be taken as agreement commercially exploit.
Don't tell Thucydides what we did...
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