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August 15, 2022

Mystery Monday 8/15/22

Last post I mentioned my third reading axis, the murder mystery, detective, crime, thriller axis. The interest, inherited from my dad, goes back almost as far as the science fiction axis. It started, very early, with Sherlock Holmes, which led to the Agatha Christie version, Hercule Poirot.

Dad introduced me to Parker and Spenser. That led to Chandler, Hammett, Stout, Paretsky, Grafton, and so many others. Some seeds planted in childhood flourish to become large trees, others never even sprout (I tried and rather quickly abandoned stamp, coin, and rock collecting.)

For Mystery Monday, here’s a brief update from the third axis.

3 Comments | tags: Elmore Leonard, Harry Kemelman, Jack Reacher, Lee Child, Lovejoy | posted in Books, Mystery Monday

August 13, 2022

Sci-Fi Saturday 8/13/22

By Wyrd Smythe

While I may not have been posting much lately, I have not been idle. One good descriptor for me — one that has been valid for nearly my entire life — is voracious reader. One thing I’m not, however, is a broadly eclectic reader. I tend to stay in the realms of science and science fiction, with the latter leaning well towards hard science fiction.

There is a third reading axis I love, the murder mystery, detective, crime, thriller axis (so: Christie, Grisham, Leonard, Child, et many al). And lately I’ve discovered some interest in historical accounts of quantum mechanics and the people behind it.

But Sci-Fi Saturday is all about the science fiction!

6 Comments | tags: Ben Bova, Robert J. Sawyer, science fiction, science fiction books, SF, SF Books | posted in Books, Sci-Fi Saturday

August 12, 2022

Friday Notes (Aug 12, 2022)

By Wyrd Smythe

It’s been a few minutes since my last post. Lately, the effort of writing hasn’t seemed worth the almost non-existent return. I find I’ve lost faith in humanity, and the phrase that seems most resonant is: “Really, when you come right down to it, what’s the point of it all?” I think, at least in our case, the Fermi Paradox seems resolved.

Perhaps more crucially, this damned dark cloud over me seems all I can write about. Everything else seems ephemeral. If we can’t solve our most basic human problems (education, race, gender, poverty, pollution) then the rest of it really is fiddling while Rome burns.

It makes me angry. Humanity can do better than this. I think.

16 Comments | tags: maze generator, mazes, pi, rational numbers | posted in Friday Notes

July 11, 2022

JWST First image!

By Wyrd Smythe

If you follow stuff like this, you probably already know, but the James Webb Space Telescope team just released the first actual image from the telescope:

More images are expected to be released tomorrow (July 12). Visit their page for details (and the full-sized image — all 4537×4630 pixels of it). Visit their excellent “Where Is Webb?” page for the latest status and stats on the JWST.

Congrats again to everyone involved! This was an amazing (and prolonged) effort. I’m glad I get to see some of the results now!

7 Comments | tags: astronomy, James Webb Space Telescope, JWST, space | posted in Science

July 4, 2022

Eleven Years

By Wyrd Smythe

One: OTOH, holy cheeseburger with onion rings, it’s this blog’s Eleven Year Anniversary. Not to mention, just last week, the nine-year anniversary of retiring from the rat race. Perhaps it’s because Summer Solstice has passed (and now the light is dying), or maybe that my mom would have been 98 (the day after Tau Day), but I find myself more reflective and thoughtful at this mid-year turning than I do, despite the influence of Janus, at New Year’s.

Other: OTOH, I’m steeped in ennui and have never felt less like writing a blog post. The question is whether the pressure of the anniversary overcomes the desire to putter, read, or nap. I’m writing this (and presumably you’re reading it), so it looks like the day won over the mood.

So… Happy Something day. Here’s a standard disgruntled anniversary ramble…

27 Comments | tags: Anniversary, blog, blog blah, blogger, blogging, July 4 | posted in Life, Writing

July 1, 2022

Friday Notes (Jul 1, 2022)

By Wyrd Smythe

The worst of it is the three posts in my Drafts folder that I can’t seem to move forward. They sit there, woefully incomplete, mocking me while other posts spring forth, quietly get dressed, and move on out the virtual door.

They’re stuck, in part, by a need for diagrams, and I’ve been stuck between whether to load my increasingly obsolete graphics app onto my new-ish laptop or invest (time, money, effort) in something new.

And life keeps happening, and that leads to another edition of Friday Notes.

16 Comments | tags: Bentley, hail, hail stone, Tom Cruise | posted in Friday Notes, Movies

June 22, 2022

Matter Waves

By Wyrd Smythe

A single line from a blog post I read got me wondering if maybe (just maybe) the answer to a key quantum question has been figuratively lurking under our noses all along.

Put as simply as possible, the question is this: Why is the realm of the very tiny so different from the larger world? (There’s a cosmological question on the other end involving gravity and the realm of the very vast, but that’s another post.)

Here, the answer just might involve the wavelength of matter.

9 Comments | tags: de Broglie wavelength, QM101, quantum computing, quantum mechanics, qubits | posted in Opinion, Physics

June 15, 2022

String Evolution

By Wyrd Smythe

Last post I wrote about a simple substitution cipher Robert J. Sawyer used in his 2012 science fiction political thriller, Triggers. This post I’m writing about a completely different cool thing from a different book by Sawyer, The Terminal Experiment. Published in 1995, it’s one of his earlier novels. It won both a Nebula and a Hugo.

I described the story when I posted about Sawyer, and I’ll let that suffice. As with the previous post, this post isn’t about the plot or theme of the novel. It’s about a single thing mentioned in the book — something that made me think, “Oh! That would be fun to try!”

It’s about a very simple simulation of evolution using random mutations and a “most fit” filter to select a desired final result.

16 Comments | tags: evolution, genetic code | posted in Computers, Wednesday Wow

June 12, 2022

Secret Code III

By Wyrd Smythe

I’ve been enjoying science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer. I wrote about the first three books I read in the previous post. Just after writing that post, I finished a fourth book, Triggers (2012), a present-day political thriller involving accidentally linked minds — one of which belongs to the POTUS.

I liked the story quite a bit, some of it so much I’m inclined to give it a Wow! rating. It was fun, and it presents some tasty food for thought. And I don’t intend to get much into any of that.

Instead, this is about a simple secret code used in the book. It was new to me, and I found it clever, so I thought I’d dash off a quick post about it.

6 Comments | tags: cipher, Robert J. Sawyer, secret codes, substitution cipher | posted in Basics

June 11, 2022

Robert J. Sawyer

By Wyrd Smythe

Quite some years ago, poking around Apple’s collection of science fiction eBooks, I noticed Calculating God (2000), by Robert J. Sawyer. I’d never heard of him but got the impression he was a literary author who’d written a science fiction novel about God.

But the book’s description intrigued enough to add to my wish list. It sat there for years. An unknown author, a very long reading list, and Apple’s obnoxious prices, all conspired to keep me from buying it. Recently I noticed Apple had removed it from their catalog.

The library didn’t have it either, but an author search turned up lots of his other SF novels. I tried one, loved it, then tried three more with good result. We seem to have similar interests and sensibilities.

27 Comments | tags: Robert J. Sawyer, science fiction, science fiction books, SF, SF Books | posted in Books, Sci-Fi Saturday