So tomorrow is the incoming travel day for Launch Pad.  I’m excited, nervous, and overworked, as usual.  It always seems to come out great.  I have some more details to prepare tonight and tomorrow, however.  Got a few links to share tonight, quickly…

I’m kind of pissed at issues being discussed like the ones I’m going to link to.  Fear of girls at Comic-con, and over here, too.  Yeah, let’s make it an issue and scare away people, male and female, from an event they might enjoy.  Stop making fights.  Stop being elite.  Stop telling people others are elite.  Stop stereotyping in this mindless, unhelpful way.

Punctuated evolution for aliens? Maybe.  I’m in general distrustful of anyone who extrapolates based on samples of one, and expects to be taken seriously.  Earth might be rare.  Earth might be typical.  We can study the issue and get some idea, eventually.  Right now, we sure don’t know.  [Thanks Travis for the story, and the ones below...]

Vast majority of scientists think that the Bush administration suppressed research.  I kind of hate how it’s portrayed as a poll result, because it’s fact.  They did.  Expressed as here, it sounds like an opinion, one that can be disagreed with.  Stupid media.  Then that opinion gets tied to another poll question about the political background as scientists — only six percent of scientists identify as Republican.  Scientists are all too human, but the methodology of science is designed to remove personal bias from its ultimate findings.  Facts are facts, and evidence is evidence.

Interview with Chris Hitchens, author of God is Not Great.

Live in Portland?  Check out Trek in the Park.  I was pretty interested until I looked at the photos.  Looked a little too much like amateur stuff I’ve seen at cons.  Still, might be fun.  Anyone see it?

Casting speculation about Green Lantern.  Ugh.  I’m not excited:

Warner Bros. is about to decide who will wear the super-powered ring in “Green Lantern,” the studio’s latest DC Comics movie, and the race has narrowed to Bradley Cooper, Ryan Reynolds and Justin Timberlake.

Lantern has serious bomb potential, in my opinion.

Well, apparently even Superman IV, the Quest for Peace, had ten good points.

Are you a lonely zombie?  Try Zombie Harmony… Personally, I’m looking for a brainy girl.

Originally published at Mike Brotherton: SF Writer. You can comment here or there.

Tags: uncategorized

I don’t even want to call this astronomical knowledge.  It should be the birthright of every kid born into the 21st century who gets to go to school for any length of time at all.  Usually I see stuff about America and lament about my own country and do my bit, but this example from the French edition of Who Wants to be a Millionaire is pretty damn scary:

I’m afraid this level of ignorance is a lot more common than I imagined.  I worry about people not understanding the seasons, or phases of the moon, but this…I need to recalibrate my expectations, or something.

Originally published at Mike Brotherton: SF Writer. You can comment here or there.

Tags: uncategorized