Today we come to honor the legacy of one of the late twentieth century's true Renaissance men. He was a multitalented author, playwright, musician and scholar. He contributed to some of the most beloved and well recognized media works of our time, and his wit and humor have been celebrated by -- and have greatly influenced -- some of the foremost thinkers of the age. We speak, of course, of Douglas Adams, and while geeks need little prompting to speak of him, we are moved to again revisit this icon of the nerd underverse on the occasion of his most famous franchise's final chapter.
And Another Thing..., the last novel in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, goes on sale this week. It's also the first, last, and only Hitchhiker's Guide novel that isn't authored by Adams himself. Eoin Colfer, the originator of the Artemis Fowl series (which might be described as Harry Potter by way of Dirk Gently), was bestowed the honor and the challenge of completing the Hitchhiker's Guide story by Adams' wife and daughter.
There are those who are rightfully leery of anyone besides Adams attempting to continue the Hitchhiker's Guide universe. After all, Adams' creation spanned the media landscape, finding its way into novels, radio, television, movies, and video games. Moreover, the Hitchhikers Guide series has influenced everything from basic text editors to chess supercomputers to Google's built-in calculator.
Yet for all that the Hitchhikers Guide has meant to us, Douglas Adams himself meant more. He wasn't just the creator of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, and Zaphod Beeblebrox. Adams occasionally jammed with Pink Floyd and picked the title for the group's final album, The Division Bell. Adams was one of only two non-Pythonites to write for Monty Python's Flying Circus. Oh, and he wrote a couple of Doctor Who serials, where he met Lalla Ward -- who played Romana -- and eventually introduced her to her present husband, noted zoologist and religious critic Richard Dawkins.
To say Adams was a man of many talents is an absurdly extreme understatement. And we haven't even begun to discuss his charity work or his technology advocacy. In fact, buried within the mountain of Adams-related trivia is the fact that he was an early adopter of one of the most well known consumer computers ever released. In fact, he was the first Englishman to own one.
Which famous computer was Douglas Adams the first Briton to own?
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Nerd Word of the Week: Streisand Effect
Streisand effect (n.) - A circumstance wherein attempting to forcibly suppress or censor a piece of information results in that same topic receiving extraordinary additional publicity. Sometimes also known as getting Steisanded. The Streisand effect is almost always used to describe the unintended and counter-productive negative online publicity resulting from attempting to remove information from the Internet.
The term comes from a civil action waged by celebrity Barbra Streisand, who once sued to keep a picture of her California beachfront mansion off the Web. (She failed, by the way, because you can still view the picture here.) The mansion was photographed as part of a pictorial series on California coastal erosion, and Streisand's $50 million legal action turned the same picture she was trying to suppress into the subject of legal debate, online discourse, and widespread news coverage, thereby popularizing it far more than the original erosion pictorial ever could have done. Moreover, her legal claims were spurious and reeked of presumed celebrity privilege, both of which are common factors in subsequent instances of the Streisand effect. Basically, anytime someone powerful and/or famous tries to control what is said about them online and uses ill-considered legal bullying to try to get their way, the Streisand effect is likely to ensue.
I bring it up because: None other than Ralph Lauren got totally Streisanded this week, when his lawyers demanded that BoingBoing (one of the five or so most popular blogs on the planet) take down a post that criticized an overly photoshopped hyper-anorexic model depicted in a Ralph Lauren ad. Now, BoingBoing certainly has a massive blog readership, but it's important to remember that its a massive blog readership and that 95 percent of the world has never heard of the site. Plus, BoingBoing does a dozen or so posts per day, and this was just one, so even the devotees of BoingBoing would have forgotten the Ralph Lauren potshot in a week at most. But when Lauren's legal goons made a ruckus -- and used an idiotically misapplied Digital Millennium Copyright Act clause to demand the post's removal -- they shone a huge, self-destructive and self-perpetuating spotlight on both the post and the subject of its criticism. (For the record, criticism and commentary fall squarely in fair use copyright exceptions, which was the content of the BoingBoing post.) That's a classic Streisand effect blowback if ever there was one.
The term comes from a civil action waged by celebrity Barbra Streisand, who once sued to keep a picture of her California beachfront mansion off the Web. (She failed, by the way, because you can still view the picture here.) The mansion was photographed as part of a pictorial series on California coastal erosion, and Streisand's $50 million legal action turned the same picture she was trying to suppress into the subject of legal debate, online discourse, and widespread news coverage, thereby popularizing it far more than the original erosion pictorial ever could have done. Moreover, her legal claims were spurious and reeked of presumed celebrity privilege, both of which are common factors in subsequent instances of the Streisand effect. Basically, anytime someone powerful and/or famous tries to control what is said about them online and uses ill-considered legal bullying to try to get their way, the Streisand effect is likely to ensue.
I bring it up because: None other than Ralph Lauren got totally Streisanded this week, when his lawyers demanded that BoingBoing (one of the five or so most popular blogs on the planet) take down a post that criticized an overly photoshopped hyper-anorexic model depicted in a Ralph Lauren ad. Now, BoingBoing certainly has a massive blog readership, but it's important to remember that its a massive blog readership and that 95 percent of the world has never heard of the site. Plus, BoingBoing does a dozen or so posts per day, and this was just one, so even the devotees of BoingBoing would have forgotten the Ralph Lauren potshot in a week at most. But when Lauren's legal goons made a ruckus -- and used an idiotically misapplied Digital Millennium Copyright Act clause to demand the post's removal -- they shone a huge, self-destructive and self-perpetuating spotlight on both the post and the subject of its criticism. (For the record, criticism and commentary fall squarely in fair use copyright exceptions, which was the content of the BoingBoing post.) That's a classic Streisand effect blowback if ever there was one.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Truly Trivial: How many extrasolar planets have official nicknames?
Today is a major anniversary in planet-hunting circles, as 14 years ago on this date scientists announced discovery of the first traditional planet orbiting a major star other than our own sun. That is to say, we found the first real alien planet.
On Oct. 6, 1995, scientists Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz announced they had observed a planet orbiting the star 51 Pegasi, which is just over 15 parsecs from Earth (that's about 50 light years or 1.28 Han Solo Kessel Runs) in the middle of the constellation Pegasus. The planet is now called 51 Pegasi b, with the lowercase letter indicating that it was the first object found in the 51 Pegasi system besides the star itself. Thus was born the formal exoplanet naming convention which, like so many scientific traditions, starts out logical but can get really confusing.
The trouble with the International Astronomical Union's exoplanet naming conventions is twofold: They weren't honored for the first exoplanets discovered, and they get pretty screwy when applied to multi-exoplanet star systems. As noted above, 51 Pegasi b was the first "traditional" planet found orbiting a major star. That is to say, it was the first planetary body found orbiting a star not unlike our own sun. 51 Pegasi b was not, however, the first planet found outside our own solar system.
Planets PSR B1257+12B and PSR B1257+12C were found orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12 in 1992, three years before 51 Pegasi b. Note the uppercase designations of the planets, rather than the lowercase tradition started with 51 Pegasi b. Since the pulsar planets were the first discovered and because they orbit a pulsar rather than a regular star, their naming convention was largely ignored when "real" planetary discovery started. The original designations of the first planets were grandfathered into official IAU catalogs rather than retroactively changing their names. (When a third, more closely orbiting planet was found around PSR B1257+12, they called it PSR B1257+12A, just to keep the confusion going.)
As noted, the accepted IAU convention is to label planets in order of discovery, rather than in order of orbital distance from the star. Thus, 55 Cancri e is the innermost known planet in the 55 Cancri system, but has the later letter designation because it was the fourth planet discovered around that star. As more massive planets are easier to find, and more massive planets tend to orbit farther from parent stars than do less massive planets, this erratic lettering system will likely become more common.
Planetary naming issues are also more complicated in multi-star systems, as stars are designated with uppercase letters, and those designations are combined with lowercase planet labels. Thus the second planet around the second star in the 16 Cygni system is 16 Cygni Bb.
No wonder 51 Pegasi b is referred by many scientists by its common name, Bellerophon, rather than by its formal IAU designation. We all grew up calling Spock's home planet Vulcan, rather than 40 Eridani Ac. It's a wonder more planets haven't been given common names.
In fact, how many extrasolar planets have been given official IAU-approved common names?
On Oct. 6, 1995, scientists Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz announced they had observed a planet orbiting the star 51 Pegasi, which is just over 15 parsecs from Earth (that's about 50 light years or 1.28 Han Solo Kessel Runs) in the middle of the constellation Pegasus. The planet is now called 51 Pegasi b, with the lowercase letter indicating that it was the first object found in the 51 Pegasi system besides the star itself. Thus was born the formal exoplanet naming convention which, like so many scientific traditions, starts out logical but can get really confusing.
The trouble with the International Astronomical Union's exoplanet naming conventions is twofold: They weren't honored for the first exoplanets discovered, and they get pretty screwy when applied to multi-exoplanet star systems. As noted above, 51 Pegasi b was the first "traditional" planet found orbiting a major star. That is to say, it was the first planetary body found orbiting a star not unlike our own sun. 51 Pegasi b was not, however, the first planet found outside our own solar system.
Planets PSR B1257+12B and PSR B1257+12C were found orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12 in 1992, three years before 51 Pegasi b. Note the uppercase designations of the planets, rather than the lowercase tradition started with 51 Pegasi b. Since the pulsar planets were the first discovered and because they orbit a pulsar rather than a regular star, their naming convention was largely ignored when "real" planetary discovery started. The original designations of the first planets were grandfathered into official IAU catalogs rather than retroactively changing their names. (When a third, more closely orbiting planet was found around PSR B1257+12, they called it PSR B1257+12A, just to keep the confusion going.)
As noted, the accepted IAU convention is to label planets in order of discovery, rather than in order of orbital distance from the star. Thus, 55 Cancri e is the innermost known planet in the 55 Cancri system, but has the later letter designation because it was the fourth planet discovered around that star. As more massive planets are easier to find, and more massive planets tend to orbit farther from parent stars than do less massive planets, this erratic lettering system will likely become more common.
Planetary naming issues are also more complicated in multi-star systems, as stars are designated with uppercase letters, and those designations are combined with lowercase planet labels. Thus the second planet around the second star in the 16 Cygni system is 16 Cygni Bb.
No wonder 51 Pegasi b is referred by many scientists by its common name, Bellerophon, rather than by its formal IAU designation. We all grew up calling Spock's home planet Vulcan, rather than 40 Eridani Ac. It's a wonder more planets haven't been given common names.
In fact, how many extrasolar planets have been given official IAU-approved common names?
Monday, October 05, 2009
Help some starving artists realize their movie dreams
My old buddy (and budding screenwriter) Brian Kelly is a finalist for the MovieHatch.com $10 million screenplay prize. The final step for him and his partner is to win the voting in the MovieHatch final contest round. I've posted his message in its entirety below.
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I’m competing in a contest called the Makin’ Movies Feature Film Competition on Moviehatch.com.
By going to this link: http://www.moviehatch.com/index.php?option=com_moviehatch&task=detail&movie=156 , you can vote on a movie trailer that represents a sci-fi thriller screenplay that I’ve written called BURN. I already have a leg up in the competition for 2 reasons: I was approached by a studio executive to enter the contest after they’d read my script and loved it, and because out of 500+ entries, I was chosen as one of only 25 featured pitches.
Voting lasts from October 1 to October 31. When casting your (hopefully 5 star ;)) vote, you will be prompted to enter your name and email address. You must then check your email and click on a link sent to you by Moviehatch.com to confirm your vote. I know entering your email may discourage some of you, but this is the only way the vote will be counted. The link will take you to a registration page, but it is not necessary to register for the site in order to make your vote count. Once you’ve clicked the link in your email, you’re done.
The site was created by established screenwriters and filmmakers to help discover unknown talent in the Hollywood film industry. Their partners include the people behind major motion pictures such as Gladiator, X-Men, Legally Blonde, Meet the Parents and Final Destination as well as more recent movies like The Ugly Truth, 500 Days of Summer and Paul Blart: Mall Cop. So they are legit and I’m incredibly lucky to even be considered.
I need your help in forwarding this on to everyone you know, or at least anyone you think might be interested. Put it on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace... anywhere you want! Help a guy reach a dream he’s been pursuing for years!
Thanks to everyone!
BrianI've voted already. I hope I can count on (all five) of my readers to do the same.
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Nerd Word of the Week: Sensawunda
Contemporary science fiction is often criticized for lacking sensawunda, especially as concerns fashionably cynical or jaded protagonists who are never amazed or inspired by their objectively fantastic and extraordinary experiences. Many critics have cited this sensawunda deficit as the reason why fantasy has overtaken science fiction in mainstream literary success, with the Harry Potter phenomenon -- and its willing embrace of sensawunda -- serving as exhibit A. Moreover, many modern characters are meta-aware, often acting as if they know they are in a fictional setting and using their knowledge of standard spec-fic tropes to navigate and outsmart the challenges of their own stories. This has the effect of being alternately hilarious (in the case of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series) or diminishing of the story; if the main character does not take it seriously, how can the reader? Iain Banks and John Varley have consciously tried to recapture the sensawunda flair of these classic sci-fi tales, with Varley explicitly channeling Heinlein juveniles in his Red Thunder and its sequels, and Banks engaging in gleeful Golden Age romanticism in his novel Feersum Endjinn.
I bring it up because: Today is the 51st anniversary of the incorporation of NASA, and if ever a real-world entity attained and then lost a sensawunda, it's the American space agency. While NASA is objectively doing faster, better, cheaper space exploration today with its advanced satellites, deep-space probes and robot rovers, it has lost the pioneer flare (and bottomless Cold War budget) that captured the imagination during the heady days of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. The upcoming Project Constellation and its Ares V rockets and Altair and Orion spacecraft harken back to the golden age of manned spaceflight, but no one is certain they will ever actually get built and, if they do, whether they'll feel just like a remake of a classic tale that has, sadly, loss it originality and sensawunda. Let's hope the critics are wrong, because the world is a brighter place when our reach exceeds our grasp, and the sky is filled with manned rockets daring for the stars.
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