Monthly Archives: July 2012
Alien Life Speculations
Planet Gliese 581 g has just been listed as the most likely to be habitable out of the list of known planets around other stars – a list that currently contains over 750 confirmed and over 2300 unconfirmed candidates.
The fact that we can detect planets at interstellar distances is an amazing feat all in itself. But that got me thinking about what kind of life might be possible on Gliese 581 g (G581g from now on!). Continue reading
More attacks on science and education
The Canadian Conservatives are continuing their attack on science and education: this time by cutting funding to Science World in British Columbia. Science World is a non-profit center dedicated to teaching children about science in an informal way.
Reaching out to children at an early age and Continue reading
Audacity to Dream
We’re all so busy, so embedded in just keeping up with life that we can so easily lose the ability to dream. It’s often hard to maintain the vision that we can be better than we are, that humanity can reach out from the dirt and squalor we often find ourselves in to reach out to the stars.
It takes bravery and a sometimes unnerving arrogance to Continue reading
Curiosity and the Martian Curse
Next month the NASA MSL Curiosity rover will attempt to land on Mars, marking the 49th mission to explore our near neighbor. Unlike other missions that used airbag landing systems, Curiosity will use a risky rocket powered sky crane because of its weight. Once landed the rover will look for signs of life.
Ever since Percival Lowell claimed to have seen canals and oases Continue reading
The history of everything
It’s often hard to really grasp history in large scales. Our relatively short lifespan doesn’t lend itself to contemplation of billions of years. The fact that we have managed to probe back to the Big Bang and the birth of time itself Continue reading
New free fiction
I’ve just uploaded the first piece of free fiction to the site. “Inser” was my first short story accepted for publication.
It was Inser’s job to watch over the Complex. The distance from Earth made that seem somewhat pointless and he always suspected the motive was more political — the bureaucratic mind just couldn’t imagine a project costing billions without some form of security, no matter how pointless. More crucially he watched those working in the Complex for any signs of misconduct. Potential danger was far more likely to come from someone there officially, someone who had slipped through the screening process. So he watched them. Scrutinised them…
I’m making the files available in mobi, epub and pdf versions. These seem to cover the majority of ebook readers (iPhone, iPad, Kindle, Nook etc.). The files are free to download but you need to register.
Contact me if there are any technical issues, or other formats you’d like to see here. And please send me your feedback on the story via the comments. What do you think of “Inser”?
Higgs Boson – What does it mean?
As expected CERN has made the announcement that the Higgs Boson has been “found”. Though a more correct description might be “isolated”. What the ATLAS results show is a particle that decays and emits energy in the the range 125-126 GeV (gig-electron volts). This particle has been confirmed to a “5 sigma” level – the gold-standard for classifying something as a scientific discovery.
The Higgs is the particle that Continue reading
Distraction by inspiration…
Writing a novel takes time. Depending on your personal circumstances at any given moment it can take anything from months to years. With that kind of scope, it’s no surprise that there are often times when a flash of inspiration for another project comes along.
The question is. How do you deal with these?
The start of any new project is always a Continue reading
Mobile!
I’ve made some changes to the site. Some of the work has been streamlining but the biggest change has been a change of ‘skin’. One of the great features of WordPress is it’s skinning or “Theme” technology – which allows you to switch the appearance of your blog extremely easily.
With the increasing popularity of mobile devices I wanted to ensure the site was readable in as many different ways as possible. The new skin should be compatible with the desktop, iPhone, BlackBerry, iPad and all major browsers and devices. I’ve checked it as much as I can and it seems to work. Let me know if you find any problems.
