Contrariwise

From Through the Looking Glass:

Alice meets the twins

"I know what you're thinking about," said Tweedledum; "but it isn't so, nohow."

"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."

And so to publishing, economics (aka, "the dismal science"), public policy, and Through the Looking Glass (aka, world-class) examples of  (il)logic.

Post postscript

About a year ago (April 12, 2011, to be precise), I commented here on Google's first full year of statistics  regarding post popularity on SF and Nonsense.

Effectively a year later, Betrayer of Worlds (October 12, 2010) remains -- by better than three to one! -- my most visited post.  It's also, and by a similar margin, the post most often commented upon. (My Fate of Worlds post -- you know, surely, that one is coming -- has its work cut out for it.)

Number two in cumulative popularity remains Trope-ing the light fantastic (life-sign detectors) (February 25, 2009). Number 3, however, is new to the tabulation -- the self-referential Postscript (or is that post post?) in which I announced last year's SF and Nonsense post-popularity statistics. The way things are trending, in a few months Postscript will move up to second place.

With that much interest, I thought: this should be an annual feature. And so here we are.

Frontiers of Space, Time, and Thought -- an odyssey

Updated July 29 2023 -- back in print and electrons. Updated links below.

Practically the first thing I did after declaring an end to day jobs -- apart from the occasional shout of joy -- was write "The Day of the RFIDs." That was in 2004.

An RFID chip

The next year, when I sold my first short-fiction collection, TDotR was its opening story. Most stories in Creative Destruction -- though not TDotR -- had first appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, so I asked Stanley Schmidt, the editor, if he'd consider writing a guest introduction. He graciously agreed -- and then, to my surprise (and delight), also based an editorial on TDotR. Story and editorial alike addressed the threat to privacy implicit in the radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips more and more often finding their way into garments, shoes, and tires. (You did know -- didn't you? -- that your Nikes could be ratting you out.)

That editorial brought in readers' letters, on some of which Stan invited me to comment. I did, but a letters-to-the-editor column can hardly accommodate in-depth discussion. And so I offered Stan a science fact article. My first. "Beyond this Point Be RFIDs" ran in Analog in 2007.

(I'd researched RFIDs for TDotR, of course, but writing the article led me to do more digging. As a bonus, the musings stirred up by that the second round of research led to a second story, "The Night of the RFIDs.")

And by such circuitous means, I took my first step down the slippery slope of also writing science and technology nonfiction. Bringing me at last -- while segueing to a commercial announcement -- to this post's subject ... 

Physics: nothing to sneeze at

For me, the early spring is definitely something to sneeze at. Pollen count is through the roof. (It must be, because it's getting to me indoors.)

Pollen. I'm not a fan.

But today's musings are neither a paean to pollen (say that quickly five times) nor a jeremiad. It's a collection of physics news -- all Really Neat Things -- well within the ambit of this blog. While my head does its best to explode (my free advice: don't watch ... especially if you've ever seen Scanners), here's some fare of likely interest:

Beginning with a second result from CERN -- independent of last September's startling report -- measuring neutrino speed. This time the elusive neutrinos were clocked at light speed (as expected), not a hair above. See "The Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos Debate Rages On" and "Adagio, OPERA."

Grand opening!

It turns out out that my authorial website (as opposed to this blog) dates back to 2001. Very Arthur C. Clarkeian, to be sure, but in Internet years that's very old. I recently decided it was time -- okay, well past time -- for a change.

Beginning with a new domain name: edwardmlerner.com. Catchy, if I do say so myself. And certainly easy for me to remember :-)

This first phase of the project mostly involved transferring old content into new software, shifting to a new hosting service, and updating page layouts to a more modern look. But that new software (and me owning the domain) will make it easier -- for some purposes, make it possible for the first time -- to add new sorts of content. There will be more phases.

Space-y program

Post-shuttle, the US manned space program requires NASA to buy seats on Russian flights to the International Space Station (ISS), until crew-rated US commercial launchers and capsules come along. (I carefully don't call this NASA's manned spaceflight program, because I doubt anyone in NASA truly wants things to be this way. Congress and two successive administrations have been mucking up the works.)

The ISS

Let's see how that plan is going ...

Ice, water, and fire

Google searches on "Gw'oth" are among the top referral sources to this blog. Reader emails and (at cons and signings) in-person questions that I'm asked also often relate to the Gw'oth.

Europa: ice, cracks, and all

(The Gw'oth, if the word doesn't ring a bell, are aliens who feature prominently in the Fleet of Worlds series of space operas that I write with Larry Niven. The Gw'oth evolved on a world somewhat  like Jupiter's moon Europa, in an ocean beneath the ice. Above the ice lies deadly vacuum. A Gw'o (that's the singular) is an aquatic creature who looks something like a starfish crossed with an octopus. I gave a more detailed physical description in the post Gw'oth revealed! And other fun stuff).

And the question that I am most often asked about the Gw'oth is: living underwater, how did they ever develop technology? Doesn't it take fire to develop technology? As regards non-biological technology, my guess -- like many readers' suspicions -- is: yes.

Wildfires were a part of our forbears' natural environment. Fire was possible in our forbears' natural environment. How the Gw'oth would master (or encounter) fire underwater is less than intuitive ....

One such reader question came up several weeks ago, far down in a thread of comments about a merely semi-related post. I answered with another comment in that same thread, but on reflection, I decided to address the topic in a post of its own. A post that people Googling "Gw'oth" will more readily find. This post.

There aren't major plot spoilers in my answer; I'm dealing primarily with back story before the opening of the series. Before humans and other species of Known Space ever met the Gw'oth. But if you continue, know you will encounter snippets of plot and text from a couple of the books.

Continue as you think best ...

Of wrong turns great and small

No mere fashion statement

As though legions of people walking around apparently talking to themselves -- immersed in remote conversation via their Bluetooth headsets -- isn't off-putting enough, Google plans to bring us voice-recognition computer-interface eyeglasses ... hideous prototype in the nearby picture. See "Head-Mounted Android: Google Reportedly Preps Connected Glasses."

In Small Miracles, I put computer-interface eyeglasses on the main character. Those glasses tracked where Brent was looking -- within the software-displayed image projected by the lenses -- by monitoring IR beams reflecting off the back of the eye. Input was entered via (trained) blinks made looking at menu items and virtual-keyboard keys. All any friend, relative, or colleague saw was his mirrored lenses. Eerily silent and quite antisocial -- but that was the point. Brent was no longer himself, exactly, and I wanted to show him losing touch with humanity.

That people may really go around online like this? I find that scary! And that Android will be the underlying software is all too ironic.