To Infinity...Or Maybe Not!

I've found that what I want to write about is predicated heavily by random confluences of events. I'll have some thought come at me or present itself in multiple ways during a short period of time. It'll get into my head and I'll be compelled to write a post about it. For instance, most of my posts about theatre can be traced back to an experience with a couple clueless theatre patrons and a conversation about a week later with a few other theatrical technicians.

Recently, I've come across space travel a few times. The Doctor Who season premiere featured the Moon Landing in a particularly awesome and inspiring (to me, at least) way. Xkcd had a comic graphing the declining population of otherworldly travelers. And as I was idly re-watching old videos on The Escapist, I came across an episode of The Big Picture where Movie Bob laments the death of the space shuttle and the apparent death of caring about going into space.

All this got me thinking, how do we go from this:

"Do you know how many people are watching this live on the telly? Half a billion. And that's nothing, because the human race will spread out among the stars—you just watch them fly. Billions and billions of them, for billions and billions of years. And every single one of them at some point in their lives will look back at this man taking that very first step and they will never ever forget it."
-The Doctor, about the Moon Landing, Day of the Moon

To this:

"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision."
-XKCD alt text, May 2, 2011

Cheated or Spoiled?

About a week ago, a friend linked to a New Yorker article about George RR Martin and all of the "fans" who vilify him for the delays of A Dance with Dragons, the fifth book in his "Song of Ice and Fire" saga. While I read all of the previous books in this series and was aware of the increasing discontent with how long the new book was taking, I had no idea things were this bad.

Like a picture of Bigfoot

For those who are unfamiliar, "A Song of Ice and Fire" is a series of fantasy novels set in a low-magic, medieval world. It had drawn a lot of attention for both the intricacies of its politics, and the fact that Martin is unafraid of killing off characters, even beloved main characters. A Feast for Crows, the fourth book in the series - which had also been long delayed - came out in 2005, but only contained story about half the characters and the world. Dragons was meant to be the companion to that, detailing the adventures of the other people and places concurrent to Crows. Over the last several years, fans have gone from eager, to impatient, to angry.

As I read the article, I kept looking for a reason why people feel this way. Why they feel entitled to this book to such a great degree that some angrily and publicly begrudge any time Martin spends on any other pursuit.

Beneficial MPD (or Why I Hate Facebook)

No, this isn't going to be a post about the happy side affects of Dissociative Identity Disorder. It's going to be about why using a fake name on the internet is not a bad thing. In fact, I believe it is a good and healthy thing to do, and I recommend it to everyone.