( Mission statement )

Audition takes more senses then just hearing. It also involves sight - with can mishear if the mouth movement is different then the sound. That's probably why dubbing and out of sync audio is so annoying. But it turns out the touch is also involved and we recognise voiced and voiceless consonants based on the feeling. Delicate trembles of air.

Power of osmosis or rather power from osmosis - in Norway first experimental, power plant producing electricity using osmosis, has been built. For now the power output is minimal but everyone used to laugh at the first solar cells and now I see them everywhere.

The horror - Time and Space split up. I didn't know they had problems. Well, actually, it's the humans fault or rather human plot. The new simulations of the quantum theory of gravity proposed by physicist Petr Hořava show that in certain condition all space dimensions collapse into one leaving just two dimensional timespace continuum. Space just can't stretch as fast as time does.

You thought that the chemicals were the only danger. It turns out that smoking is also a biohazard. The bacteria that were on tobacco leaves get inhaled into the smokers' lungs. They are still alive. And infectious.

I finally went to see District 9. It was as good a movie. As good as I expected it to be from all the reviews I’ve read. I think it was the best movie I’ve seen for a long, long while. I think it made a bigger impression then Crash and Hotel Rwanda. There was no stunt casting and famous faces. There was no noble brave hero who goes against the system no matter the cost that usually come with movies like that. It was bleak and so real.

( Vaguely spoilerish for the District 9 and Dust of Dreams )

I feel so bleak right now. Good thing the film had Christopher Johnson and his son. Good thing Erikson also writes about the better side of humanity sometimes. And sometimes he even gives us some truly poetic justice. I could use some examples of random acts of kindness right now.

Pat has the cover for upcoming Steven Erikson's Bauchelain and Korbal Broach novella Crack'd Pot Trail. This one sounds fun. I usually wait for the necromancers novellas to be translated. They are not important for the main sequence of events and self contained so no need to know what happen next to drive me. It's much easier to get them in Polish and much cheaper. But now that I'm to leave country soon I need to figure out the logistics of getting this. One more problem - feeding my malazan addiction. After all all books are available on this side of the pond first.

I've just read about IBM creating artificial simulation of cat's brain. My first thought was Aineko lives. The artificial cat of Charles Stross's Accellerando novel who started as ct brain simulation and anded up as a godlike superhuman intelligence manipulating everyone. This is how our overlords are born - uneventfully. The future of downloading minds is getting closer and closer every day. Even though right now the simulation runs 100x slower then the actual brain and needs insane amounts of processing power it still one day may be the future of human race - Greg Egan showed how it can work in Permutation City. Meanwhile on the other fronts of coming Singularity (or machine over take or both) Intel is working on brain implant that will allow humans to control electronic devices with thoughts and the autonomous robots are to become so common school children will use them for projects. See how it all comes together. Future is sneaking up on us.

LHC went through a test run yesterday and this time nothing broke down. It was successful and the beams went both ways. So it seems the Higgs boson no longer tires to sabotage its own creation. Maybe it got bored. Or maybe it went through treatment and no longer feel abhorrent to nature. So next step is collision. And then comes Higgs boson in next few years hopefully. And if it won't work out here are prospects on the next generations of colliders that may be able to do the trick and discover whole new physics on the way.

The weather got better. It is warm (up to 10) and today even sunny. The air smells like spring and one could mistake it for March if not for the fact that the supermarkets just put out the Christmas lights. It took them longer then usual this year but the trees are shining with lights and the shelves are full of things that are generally assumed to be Christmassy. And its already a middle of November. Usually all that happens on the begging of November - just after the Day of the Dead. How I'm going to make it with the presents with only a month left? You were supposed to warn me early. This means I need to start so here is a link with the free books repositories on the internets.

My best friend just became a mother today. She was suppose to give birth in the middle of December but there have been problems for a while now with blood pressure and lately also with other thing. They kept her in a hospital for the last week waiting for the end of 36th week. Today she had a c-section. They are both OK. I've seen the picture and he is small but he is fine and he breathes on his own. She's been telling me for past month that she's had enough of the pregnancy and wanted it to be over, to have her son already. This is how wishes come true. I'm happy everything turned out to be alright. Now just one more visit to the hospital for me to see him with my own eyes.

Stephen Fry got million followers on twitter so he gave the world this:

It all sounds pretty sensible to me. I think I will give Windows 8 a miss.

I spent most of today doing my semi-annual check-up which I spent mostly reading Dust of Dreams. I'm not done so I just concentrate on one detail. Setoc, Cafal and Torrent's warren travel. Just a little Easter Egg.

I'm tired after getting up early for blood-letting and blood-letting so that's it. I go to sleep.

Today is Independence Day and unlike last year this year it's true November weather. Rain, wind, cold. It's so dark that we need artificial light despite it being the middle of the day. I feel sorry for all those soldiers and officials that take part in official ceremonies. Standing for hours in this weather. I'm not leaving home. It was a stupid idea to chose November date for it. It's depressing so I need something opposite. And since the last one is gone, here is new picture:

Smile by ~Ellestra7 on deviantART

Flash Forward improved last week. There was almost no Mark/Olivia drama which I find annoyingly stereotypical. Instead there was more interesting other people.
( Spoilers for Flash Forward 1x07 The Gift )

I liked the V premiere. Show about aliens with cool spaceships (or even just a show with spaceships - I'd watch Viruality for seasons if only they did the engines starting sequence on every episode) will always get a head start on the liking. ( General spoilers for V old and reboot )


I got annoyed by Dexter 4x06 - ( Basic biology fail )

After an evening spent with my various nephews and niece I really need some quiet time. They are all very cute separately but the oldest is 3.5 and in a group they are worse then the locust swarm - they leave devastation behind. Time to relax watching some nice pictures.

This explains everything about how the supernatural world is organised and should be taught in school as an ideological alternative to the religion:


The future trends according to The Wired including DIY medicine. And look at Google and amazon funneling everything that comes their way.

And last but not least io9 has a picspam of the Fan-Made Replicas of Science Fiction's Favorite Land Vehicles including Akira's bike and Doc Brown's DeLorean.

It's November - cold, rainy and dark. When its cloudy day (most of days) we have to turn the lights on after 3 p.m. My least favourite part of year. So for something totally different - sealife.

The Cuteness you can die from:

Photograph by David Doubilet
Toxic sea slug of the Nudibranchs order - Chromodoris toxic nudibranch

Squid proves toons are more real then you think:

Piglet squid looks like a balloon animal and has light producing organs. What more do you need?

And for those who would like something more spicy - mating barnacles.

Mating barnacles from Casey Dunn on Vimeo.

Super long, disposable penises - cannot beat nature in porn.

NewScientist has an interview with Terry Pratchett. He talks about his fascination with science and inspiration for Unseen Academicals. There is interesting stuff about how he deals with his Alzheimer's and how it changed how he writes books now that he can no longer type. It is inspiring that he fights the disease by learning new things when he looses the old skills. He also answers some readers' questions - like where he gets his hats.

Black holes for space travel. The science paper explaining how to create really, really small black holes that can be used as the drive for interstellar travel. They could be used for reaching sub-light speeds. Science and science fiction - sometimes all the difference is the journal type.

And if that space travel possibility seems a bit far fetched to you, you can chose something closer to home. Like the orbit. The space hotel takes reservations for 2012. You just need 4.4 million dollars.

The two sequels I actually care about. Robert Zemeckis talks about the Roger Rabbit sequel on MTV - mixing live action, 2D and motion capture, I hope he can make it work. And it seems that the work on Dr. Horrible 2 is moving on - there are some songs written already.

The winners of 2009 World Fantasy Awards are:

Lifetime Achievement: Ellen Asher & Jane Yolen
Best Novel (tie): The Shadow Year Jeffrey Ford (Morrow) & Tender Morsels Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin; Knopf)
Best Novella: If Angels Fight Richard Bowes (F&SF 2/08)
Best Short Story: 26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss Kij Johnson (Asimov’s 7/08)
Best Anthology: Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy Ekaterina Sedia, ed. (Senses Five Press)
Best Collection: The Drowned Life Jeffrey Ford (HarperPerennial)
Best Artist: Shaun Tan
Special Award – Professional: Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant (for Small Beer Press and Big Mouth House)
Special Award – Non-Professional: Michael Walsh (for Howard Waldrop collections from Old Earth Books)

Strangely none of these seem appealing. It's probably because I don't like Jeffrey Ford much.

So October ends today. We've finally seen some sunshine but it means it also got colder and it was -5 tonight. In the morning everything was covered in frost which looked beautiful in the sun. The golden leaves, the frost, the blue skies. Then the sun melted the frost and leaves started to fall. In few hours many trees got bare. And the sun hid behind clouds.

I observed it all from home instead running through cemeteries (because All Saints is tomorrow and we celebrate by visiting graves) because I'm sick. Running around with cold when it's cold is not the best idea so I stayed home. Especially since it's only two days this year and the crowds were gigantic. Too bad as I actually like going there. Especially the lights and the candy (they sell a special ind of candy this time of year at Bródno cemetery - old tradition). And this would have been the last time.

And staying with the subject of dieing - now both of my home computers are unstable. The PC boot record got screwed I might have to reinstall the system. For now it boots from the CD. Just what I needed - another computer on life support.

I think I'm going to be sick again. The weather is still depressing. I have loads of work this week and I need to prepare a presentation on my visit to Prague (mostly photos :P).

My laptop is dieing (more precisely the hard drive). I was to buy a new one but I suppose there's no point now. I was to post some thoughts on Dollhouse and BSG The Plan and Dust of Dreams yesterday but I lost it. Now it'll have to wait till I have time to write it again and hopefully no hardware failure to thwart me.

I've said time and again that I prefer Summer Time and wish to stay in it but I noticed lately that I got used to time change. It may show how old I'm getting but somehow my body and mind expects it to happen. I've been switching to going to sleep later and I prefer to wake up an hour later too for a couple of weeks. I know - it might be just dark and rainy and being lazy but I had the reverse in March and switching to getting up earlier was always a pain. Not this year, though. It looks like one can get used even to such rare events. Or maybe I'm just that weird.

There's been talk about live-action Ghost in the Shell movie for a long time now. It seemed to be stuck in limbo forever but it looks like it might be made as DreamWorks is developing it and they will make it 3-D. I suppose it depends on how well avatar will do then. And the most important question remains - can it be even nearly as good as the original?

And we may finally see some godlike AI on film as one of Iain M. Banks' Culture short stories have been announced as one of the new projects
....writing the script, which if it sticks to source will be about a refugee from Banks' complex utopia The Culture, living undercover on a world that the anarchist socialist intergalactic colonial empire (yes, it's contradictory, we know) has just noticed, and being blackmailed into a violent act using a Culture-specific weapon.

It probably never actually be done or be a complete mess but it be interesting to finally get some really advanced future and non evil AIs on screen. The post-human, singularity fiction has been around for a while now. It's high time for it to finally appear on screen.