But not too much bigger, because gravity.

There's a phrase I hear almost every day.

I always have the same reaction when I hear it.

I heard it again just now, from my office roommate Bill, and it's time to put my response in writing.

The phrase is:

It's a small world, isn't it?

Yes, yes it is.  And that's why the exploration of space is so important:

BIGGER WORLDS.

- Sid

"A cat has no food. A man must feed a cat."

When my lovely partner Karli moved in with me just over a year ago, she brought with her Cooper the cat, an elderly white Persian whose grim visage belied his warm and affectionate nature.  I was quite pleased to have Cooper as part of our little family - I had been without a feline roommate for several years, and Cooper and I bonded quickly and easily.  

Sadly, Time has its way with everyone, and about six weeks ago Cooper made his final visit to the veterinarian. It was a heartbreaking time for both Karli and I;  Karli in particular feeling more than a little depressed by the loss of her confidant and companion for over 18 years.

Because of Cooper's importance to both of us, we quickly became aware of the cat-shaped hole in our lives. Karli began looking at cats online, and we paid a couple of visits to the Vancouver SPCA Catfé, but we just weren't finding the right cat for us.  We knew we couldn't replace anyone as special and unique as Cooper, but we hoped to find a cat who would make his own place in our hearts.

Karli persevered in her online search, which led us to the Richmond SPCA at the end of June to meet a congenial six-year-old orange and white tabby.*  He had been brought in as a stray, and then taken by a family who had just returned him to the SPCA after a year of ownership, citing litter tray usage problems. In spite of this dubious entry on his resume, we decided that we would adopt the little guy, and returned to pick him up two days later (two days rather than one due to the branch's Canada Day closure.)

He was introduced to us as Oliver, and his previous name was Pumpkin, but somehow we didn't find either of those names to be a fit.  We made a list of possible names, debated them at length, but nothing really seemed to be working for us.

During one of our discussions, I referred to "the cat without a name".  Karli gave me a significant sideways look and quietly said, "A cat has no name."

 

Thanks to this well-timed misquotation from George R. R. Martin, I'm happy to introduce our new cat, known to the world as Jack, but whose full name is actually Jaqen H'ghar, named after the enigmatic face-changing third-person Braavosi assassin from Game of Thrones. In the books, Jaqen disappears after aiding Arya Stark, but the HBO adaptation offers him a larger role as a servant of the Many-Faced God in the House of Black and White.**

Jack (or Jaq) is a friendly, affectionate fellow who is well on his way to settling in with us (and hopefully getting used to his new name, not that cats care very much about that sort of thing.)

"If a girl should need a cat, a girl should roll this across a hardwood floor.
A cat will come if such a thing is done."

And his name - his full name, that is - makes perfect sense.  Cats are solidly behind the Braavosi philosophy of valar dohaeris: all men must serve.***

- Sid

* Looking for a cat?  Kittens are very cute, but consider getting an adult cat who has already learned the ins and outs of kitty litter and food dishes. Adult cats are also more likely to sleep on the bed with you rather than maniacally wrestle their own tail on your pillow at 3:00 AM.  (At least with any luck they are.)

** You may follow the theory that the man at the temple in Braavos is only wearing the face of Jaqen H'ghar. Personally, I prefer the way in which it streamlines the narrative if it's the same person, but to each their own.

*** Women too.  Cats are completely without sexism when it comes to service.

Or Amazing.

I was looking at the picture of Karli in the Borg regeneration alcove from our visit to the Star Trek exhibition at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle, and something about it reminded me of a classic pulp science fiction magazine cover...

 

I may do up an alternate version that's a little more distressed, I've never seen one of these covers without a few creases or scratches.

- Sid

"They like to get the landmarks."

For whatever reason, Canada is very rarely the victim of apocalyptic destruction in movies, television or novels. Granted, anything that wipes out the entire world will destroy Canada as well, but depending on the nature of the catastrophe, Canada is far more likely to be someplace where people seek refuge from the disaster rather than ground zero for it.*

As previously mentioned, I'm very aware of this gap in our cultural framework, so I was actually a bit pleased to see a transit shelter poster for Independence Day: Resurgence that featured a gigantic space ship hovering over a crumbling CN Tower.

"Perfect," I thought.  "I'm all set for a Canada Day posting, I'll just go home and find a good copy of that online."

Unexpectedly, the internet was not forthcoming.  This was a bit surprising, given that I could have easily downloaded a JPEG showing a similar view of Big Ben being destroyed, or the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty**, the Eiffel Tower, the Marina Sands Hotel in Singapore, Grant's Tomb  - even the Petronas Twin Towers from Kuala Lumpur - but not the CN Tower.  (Just for the record, the studio deliberately skipped the Gate of India in Mumbai.) If the poster didn't exist at all, I might have been less surprised, but given that it did exist, why would it not be posted online with the other versions?

Disappointed, I decided that I would just hop off the bus on the way home from work and take as good a picture of the ad as possible.

I was disappointed once again: within 36 hours of my original pass by the poster location, it was gone.  Feeling a bit frustrated, I continued home to broaden my search online in hopes that someone else had at least been able to get a snapshot of the Canadian marketing for Resurgence.

Now, just for the record, I'd like to say that I have pretty strong Google-fu.  I can often find things for people who have had absolutely no luck looking for something online.  Nonetheless, after an extensive search I was only able to find two pictures (and a half) of the alien destruction of Toronto's most visible tourist attraction.

I know that Resurgence isn't doing particularly well at the box office, and given the poor reviews I've read I was probably going to skip it, but now I feel a bit tempted to see the movie just to see if there actually is a scene showing the invaders tearing up the CN Tower by the roots, or if it was just a poorly supported blip in the movie's marketing plan.

If that scene is in the movie, 20th Century Fox's marketing people have obviously dropped the ball by not promoting it more widely in Vancouver.  After all, there are more than a few people in British Columbia who would be happy to see any movie with a scene, no matter how brief, showing Toronto being destroyed by aliens.

- Sid

* It's not difficult to imagine a future where climate change has boosted global temperatures to the point where the vast, almost uninhabited areas that make up the better part of our country become usable - in fact, perhaps even desirable - real estate.  Imagine sailing on the tropical blue waters of Hudson Bay as the palm trees lining the beaches near Churchill nod in the warm breeze...

** And a somewhat wistful poster showing a Unicorn Gundam in the same position, but with a defiantly upraised fist rather than a torch.

The couple that regenerates together, assimilates together.

Borg regeneration alcove at Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds - one size fits all.

- Sid

"Look at me...look at me...I'm the captain now."

Reproduction of Kirk's command chair at Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds.  As I said, I see my fictional alter ego as being a starship captain...

- Sid

"Star Trek is a language nearly everyone speaks."

 

For 50 years, Star Trek and its themes of optimism, equality and heroism have inspired people worldwide. 

Star Trek presents a positive future - a utopia without poverty or war. In that future, all of humanity has set aside their differences and joined together in an extraordinary task: to explore the stars, meeting every challenge with bravery and thoughtfulness. 

What began as a low-budget science fiction television show with modest ratings expanded into a franchise spanning seven television series, thirteen movies, and thousands of novels, comics and games. Star Trek has made a profound impact on our society.  Star Trek's ideas and memes are now so deeply embedded in the fabric of our popular culture that even people who have never seen it can name key characters and recite its catch phrases. Star Trek inspires art, science, architecture, music and literature. Star Trek is a language nearly everyone speaks.  

Brooks Peck, Curator - Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds

I recently discovered that, in honour of Star Trek’s 50th anniversary, the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle is hosting a retrospective exhibition on the Star Trek phenomenon, and its impact on the world. Accompanied (and chauffeured) by my tolerant* girlfriend Karli, we headed down to Washington state last weekend to take a look.

After checking into our hotel, we made our way to Frank Gehry’s multi-coloured architectural masterpiece, and forked over thirty bucks US each for admission to the museum in general and the Star Trek portion specifically.  Once inside, we passed on the opportunity for a $60 autograph from Brent Spiner** (or a $30 selfie) and made our way directly into the exhibition.

 

To be honest, I feel that if you’ve seen one display of artifacts from a franchise, you’ve pretty much seen all of them – I guess I’ve become jaded in my old age. It’s also a relatively small exhibition, considering the long history of the show and its spinoffs.

 

That being said, the exhibits are comprehensive, well arranged and well explained. There’s a good mix of photo ops and interactivity: a full range of starship filming models, a duplicate of Kirk’s command chair (and the original), an excellent touch-screen starship database, props and costumes from all parts of the franchise, a Borg regeneration alcove, a horizontal duplicate of a Jefferies Tube***, and a transporter set where visitors can act out a scene. (Sadly, we were stumped by the “KHAAAAAAAAN!” simulator - as were a lot of other people, as far as we could tell.)

There are some odd little surprises. The Borg cube, which I always thought was computer generated, turned out to be an astonishingly detailed model, and the signs of forcible disassembly with a blunt object are quite obvious in the seams of the bridge set pieces from the original series. (Although it was interesting to see the navigation console from the captain's perspective.)  

There also is a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek humour to the exhibition. The display booths are set against a background of fake orange rocks, very much in the style of those made famous by the original series, and random solitary tribbles punctuate the displays: perched on top of a divider, or nestled underneath the navigation console. 

Karli was completely taken aback by the unexpected prospect of Data’s severed head looking up at her through a sheet of plexiglass from a pit in the floor – I wonder how Brent Spiner felt about that particular nod to the Next Generation episode Time's Arrow?

The real key to the exhibition lies in the display on the upper level, which examines Star Trek's effect on society in general. The most impressive thing about Star Trek is its legacy - no other piece of popular entertainment has had the same kind of a sustained cultural impact that Star Trek has.

The mezzanine displays focus on that impact: artistic, scientific, architectural, and musical, and includes a multi-screen video presentation that examines the real-life influence that Star Trek had upon the world.  Scientists, astronauts, writers and actors discuss the manner in which the goals and ideals presented by Star Trek made a difference in people's lives.

As with all good science fiction, Star Trek shows us the future but comments on the present. The original series in particular offered the world a future in which many of the problems that plagued the Sixties no longer existed. Sequels and spinoffs have continued to look at contemporary problems to a greater or lesser extent, and Gene Roddenberry's original vision of a better world has show remarkable longevity.

(Although, let's be honest, it's difficult to place the Picardigan on the same level as Martin Luther King's request to Nichelle Nichols that she stay on the show in order to continue as a role model for black people.)

For me, the most interesting thing about Exploring New Worlds was not the exhibition itself, but the people attending it. There were fans taking pinup photos in the Jefferies tube, and people snapping pictures of a baby **** in the reproduction of Kirk's command chair - presumably the Next Generation of fan.

There were fans in costumes, fans in uniforms, fans in pointed ears, and one fan wearing a steampunk Star Trek gown. They posed as regenerating Borg, stood in line to stand in as actors in a transporter scene, and I saw one woman literally bounce up and down with joy when she saw the bridge set from the original series.

To quote a certain half-Vulcan science officer: "Fascinating."

- Sid

* And lovely.

** Denise Crosby was also on site for photo ops, but I 'm just more of a Data fan.  It was an interesting combination, though, considering that their characters were “intimate” in The Naked Now, an appropriately titled first season episode of The Next Generation.

*** I honestly had no idea that Jefferies Tubes were a mystery to the population at large, but apparently this is where we cross the line from well-known information - like phasers and transporters - into esoterica. Jefferies Tubes were the little tunnels used by engineering crewmembers to access various bits of the Enterprise’s infrastructure. If you ever saw Scotty lying in a cramped little space working desperately to fix something (usually the transporter) while smoke and sparks filled the foreground, he was in a Jefferies Tube. They’re named after Matt Jefferies, who designed the original U.S.S. Enterprise.

**** And then rushing to save him as he began to slowly topple over to one side.  Did Shatner ever do that?

"This is the action I've been waiting for!"

My friend Deb is a comic book character.

(You know, it says a lot about my life that this probably doesn't come as a surprise to anyone reading this posting.)

I'll let her husband Rob explain:

I wanted to let you know that I have created a comic book inspired by my wonderful wife, Deb. It's called Deborah Daring, The Private Eye With Attitude! Her comic book alter ego is a paralegal by day and an intrepid private investigator by night. 

I used to draw quite a bit and this all started with me drawing Deb as a super hero. The idea took hold of me and I decided to turn the character into a full blown comic book. While I did the initial concept drawings and all the writing, I ended up having to hire a professional comic book artist to help me complete the book. It was a lot of work and a ton of fun creating this comic and now it's time to share it with the world!

I decided to use the crowd funding website Kickstarter to help me raise the funds for printing and distributing the book, and the campaign is now live! So I encourage you to click on the link below and take a look. If you like what you see, or at least want to support my creative effort, please back my campaign by submitting a pledge. There are various pledge levels you can contribute ($3 and up) and every pledge counts! You can also check out a website I created for Deborah Daring, as well as a Facebook page.

Website: http://www.deborahdaring.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deborahdaring/

Thanks in advance for your support! And if you know any comic book fans, forward the link to them and spread the word! Send any feedback or questions to info@deborahdaring.com 

Cheers,

Rob

If you'd like to support Deb's future as a PDF private eye, you have until the end of the month to contribute:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1802652009/deborah-daring-the-private-eye-with-attitude-1st-i

Now personally, I see my comic book character as more science-fictiony, maybe a bridge officer on a mission of interstellar exploration...after all, there's an awful lot of precedent for having a bald starship captain.

- Sid

Math homework.

There have always been people in the fan community whose commitment was so complete that they were compelled to determine the validity of the science portion of science fiction - to do things like calculate whether or not the U.S.S. Enterprise actually could travel the 16.5 light years from Earth to 40 Eridani A in four days* and so on.  

For the most part, I haven't been one of those people. I generally give most scientific questions the benefit of the doubt, or attribute any possible discrepancies to creative license.  However, I recently ran across the following paragraph in the David Weber/Steve White military SF collaboration In Death Ground, and it made me just a little curious - it was just a bit too glib:

"Fifteen light-seconds," Trang reported. "Coming into - missile launch! Multiple hostile launches! One hundred twenty plus inbound. Impact in two-seven seconds from mark!"

Okay, let's do some math.  They're fifteen light seconds away from the ships launching the missiles. Light travels 299,792 kilometers in one second, so that's 4,496,880 kilometers.**  Average speed or velocity (v) is calculated by dividing displacement*** (Δx or x) by time (t) , which gives us a result of 166,551 kilometers/second, which kind of makes sense if you just roughly calculate it - 15 light seconds, 27 seconds travel time, so a little bit faster than half the speed of light.

 However, that's the average velocity - obviously if you start at zero k/s, you need to accelerate to a higher speed to cover that distance in the same rate as if you had hit the ground running, so to speak. Thanks again to Google™, we find that acceleration (a) = 2x/t² - 2v0/t, which gives us a constant acceleration of 12,337,119 m/s² squared  (v0 is starting velocity, which in this case is presumably zero - or perhaps a negative value, the starships in question are retreating from their missile-launching enemy).

Final velocity of 333,102.213 km/s - hang on, that's faster than the speed of light, and the book is clear that the tech base for Mr. Trang's space navy doesn't include FTL travel.  But this sort of makes sense as a number, obviously your speed at some point has to be higher than the average speed in order to compensate for the fact that you started from zero.

I wasn't completely confident in my results, so I sought out our resident numbers guy, Andrew.  (Andrew was hired as a business analyst, but the manipulation of statistics and information is a large part of that, so Andrew is often pulled into discussions regarding math.)

To my astonishment, after I explained the question, he went to the white board in his office and produced the following off the top of his head:

Well, now I know why we hired Andrew.

Ultimately, the moral of the story is that the authors might not have done full due diligence on their math. (Or maybe their drive technology has a very steep acceleration curve.) For me, the real joke is that the missiles are supposed to explode when they hit their target.  I'm reasonably certain that if a multi-tonne projectile hits a starship while travelling at the speed of light, an explosion would be redundant. I'll leave it to the curious reader to calculate the amount of energy that would result from such an impact - just leave your answers as comments.  The actual weight of the missiles doesn't appear in the book anywhere to the best of my knowledge, so feel free to make your own estimate as to an appropriate weight for a weapon of this sort****.  Good luck - and please show your work.

- Sid

* 40 Eridani A is generally considered to be the location of Vulcan. This is one of those things that was never clearly defined in the original series, but when science fiction author James Blish was hired to turn the episodes into short stories for the purposes of novelization, he chose 40 Eridani A as being a likely candidate based on its distance from Earth, and over time this has become accepted as canon.

 ** To give you some perspective on that number, the Moon at its furthest from earth is 405,696 kilometers away, so eleven times as far as the Moon.

***AKA distance if you're not a mathematician.

**** As a guideline, a fully loaded F16 Falcon fighter weighs in at about 21 metric tonnes.

EDIT:  Sadly I've had to close down Comments for this posting, I've had one very enthusiastic but somewhat non-linear commenter who is just getting further and further away from the actual topic at hand.  My apologies, Tonyon.
 

Gnomic Statement XIV.

 We never did have a chance to see what colour coat the driver was wearing.

- Sid

P.S.  We followed this vehicle through the U.S. border crossing, and the driving was quite good - like a leaf on the wind...

DON'T PANIC!

 

In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitch Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. 

First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.

Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

May 24th marks the fifteenth anniversary of Towel Day, the annual tribute to the memory of Douglas Adams, author of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy.  I've been on and off in my recognition of the day - mostly off this time, I didn't bother to carry the mandatory towel to work with me today, although I did check in at towel.org to see how the rest of the community had celebrated the day.

There was a surprising* (and gratifying)  amount of media attention in addition to the wide array of fan activities, but if there is a prize for the most appropriate event, it would have to go to the Royal Institution of Great Britain** and European Space Agency astronaut Tim Peake, currently serving on the International Space Station:

When we had a chance to send something up to @astro_timpeake on the ISS, this is what we sent. Happy #TowelDay! pic.twitter.com/9QOFshn9Sv

— Ri_Science (@Ri_Science) May 25, 2016

I think that Mr. Adams would heartily approve.  Beat that, NASA.

- Sid

P.S.  If someone reading this knows how to center an embedded Twitter™ posting, please let me know.

* For the most part, May the 4th generally gets a lot more action in the press.

** In some ways the British equivalent of The Planetary Society, but with a broader scientific mandate.

Return of the Attack of the Weregeek.

 

This morning, my co-workers and I were galvanized by a shriek of panic from Kate, the administrative assistant who works at our reception area.  Everyone within earshot - which was actually just everyone, it was pretty loud shriek - rushed to her desk in order to help with whatever issue had caused Kate to start screaming.

As it turned out, Kate had seen an insect on her desk.  She said that it was a centipede, but added that it was huge - "Like Godzilla!"

Unfortunately, as previously established, this sort of comment often gets a reaction from me which may not be exactly what the commenter is expecting.

"Well, no, not Godzilla, Godzilla was a lizard."

"Hmmmm....it wouldn't be Gidrah or Rodan, they could fly, and were also sort of lizards.  Mothra was a giant insect, but obviously more of a giant moth than a centipede.  Gosh, I'm certain that Godzilla must have fought a giant centipede at some point, but I cannot for the life of me bring a picture of it to my mind.  I'm sorry, Kate, I'll have to do some research and get back to you."

Leaving our department head Peter courageously searching the top of Kate's desk, I returned to my workstation, where a rapid* Google search revealed that my memory is either better or worse than I thought.  As I thought, none of the celluloid incarnations of Japan's favourite giant lizard ever fought a centipede monster, but that wasn't the only option when searching for Godzilla's foes.

There was also a short-lived spinoff animated series based on the unfortunate** 1998 Roland Emmerich film which starred Matthew Broderick (and Godzilla). Godzilla: The Series was based on the idea that one of Godzilla's monstrous hatchlings had survived the events of the movie, and imprinted on Broderick's character - perhaps because of residual pheromones from his close encounter with Godzilla's saliva in the movie, I don't completely remember the details. (In my defense, it's been almost 20 years since I last watched the series.)

In Metamorphosis, the ninth episode of Season TWO of G:TS, Godzilla Junior did in fact cross paths with a giant centipede named Megapede.  Using this as a guide, I did a quick image search, and found a few pictures of the many-legged menace.

At this point, Kate, somewhat recovered from her ordeal, approached my desk with a question about digital letterhead.  I showed her the picture that starts this posting and explained that it was a picture of Megapede.

"Yes, that is absolutely what I saw - and Megapede, that's exactly the right name.  Thank you very much!!"

And she returned to her desk, which under the circumstances demonstrated remarkable courage.  If that thing was still lumbering around on my desk and made another appearance, I would probably scream much, much louder than she did.

- Sid

* We're on company time, after all.

** Full confession:  I actually kind of like the 1998 version of Godzilla.  I fully admit that Matthew Broderick really doesn't carry the movie, but the supporting actors cheerfully cast aside any desire to take the film seriously and do everything but chew the scenery in order to help move things forward.  (Jean Reno's Elvis Presley imitation is particularly memorable.)  Not only that, but I thought that the FX team did a good job of envisioning what an actual giant mutant lizard might look like, rather than a rather obvious man in a rubber suit.***

*** When the movie first came out, I commented favourably on the CGI version of Godzilla to my friend Alan, who immediately announced that he preferred a man in a rubber suit.  I gravely promised not to quote him out of context, although I've been tempted more than once over the intervening years.

Bill Nye 3: Planetary.

 Space exploration brings out the best in us. It is inherently optimistic.

- Bill Nye

I think that it's safe to say that an interest in space exploration is common among science fiction fans.  It's not really the same as what we've been reading about, but it's obvious that the global space initiative responsible for things like the International Space Station represents the first steps toward a future where we explore - and perhaps inhabit - more and more of our solar system.*  However, it's more of a spectator sport than anything else, after all, there's not a lot one person can do to move the process forward.

Or at least that's what I would have said until last month, when I found out about the Planetary Society.

The Planetary Society was founded in 1980 by science spokesmen Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray, and Louis Friedman, with the intent of creating an organization that would allow the general public to become more involved in the exploration of space in two ways:  by giving it a voice for advocacy, and by offering opportunities for education and participation.

The Society now has over 40,000 members around the world, making it the largest and most influential public space organization group on Earth - if not the solar system.  Bill Nye is the current CEO, and the Board of Directors and Advisory Council is made up of a Who's Who of space exploration, investigation and advocacy such as Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, science fiction author David Brin, Quirks & Quarks host (and fellow Canadian) Bob McDonald, scientist and SETI president Frank Drake, actor Robert Picardo, Hayden Planetarium Director and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, and a host of others, united by a shared commitment to expand humanity's horizons.

I'm proud to say that I'm now literally a card-carrying**  member of the Planetary Society.  The annual membership fee is about $60 CAD, which struck me as a reasonable investment to make in helping to promote our future in space.

Let's face it, sooner or later you have to put your money where your mouth is.

http://planetary.org/

- Sid

* We're progressing toward that future either very quickly or ridiculously slowly, depending on whether you start the clock with Yuri Gagarin or Lucy (the 3.2 million year old fossil Australopithecus, that is, not Charlie Brown's nemesis).

** I got a nice T-shirt, too.

Bill Nye 2: Money Money Money.

Bill Nye: "I bet I'm the only person here who carries a Canadian five dollar bill around with them."

Me: (reaching thoughtfully for my wallet)  "Actually, Bill...."

I feel humbled by having to visit Florida to learn from an American that the Canadian contribution to the international space program is featured on the back of our five dollar bill.

Hang on - does anybody know what's on the ten?

- Sid

Bill Nye 1: "Stand back, I'm going to try science!"

Last month I attended an e-learning conference in Florida, where to my mild surprise Bill Nye was featured as the keynote speaker on the first day of the event. To be honest, I wasn't really sure what the Science Guy was going to bring to the table, so I was pleasantly surprised by his intense one-hour presentation on learning, exploration and, of course, science and the importance of scientific thinking and investigation.

Live whiteboard illustration by Kelly Kingman

If asked, I would have said that Bill Nye was an unexpected candidate to be the voice of scientific rationalism in the 21st century. It's as if Mister Rogers had decided to launch a crusade to return America to its religious roots, based on his popularity as a children's program host. (Not as strange an example as you might think - Fred Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister.)

However, Nye's passion for science is undeniable, and his television stint from 1993 to 1998 as Bill Nye The Science Guy makes him as recognizable an icon to the current generation as Fred Rogers was during his own era, giving Nye a visibility factor that instantly raises the profile for his advocacy regarding scientific theory.

He's strategically maintained and developed his pop-culture profile with a pair of best-selling books* on evolution and science, and innumerable TV appearances as an advocate for scientific thought. A prime example is his famous two hour and 45 minute 2014 debate with creationist Ken Ham, which had an audience of over one million broadcast viewers and which has received over 6 million views on YouTube. He's also the current president of The Planetary Society, an international non-profit organization created to allow the general public to contribute toward the advancement of space exploration.

The comparison to a religious crusade is not entirely appropriate, given that Nye's crusade is in some ways against religion - or, to be more accurate, the fundamentalist view of the world around us, I don't think the Science Guy objects to religion per se.

Similarly, I have nothing against people who have chosen to have faith in a higher being, or to take a spiritual view of life, but I have to agree with Bill Nye: the insurmountable problem with creationism is that it doesn't advance our understanding of how the universe works. Ignoring or denying all the scientific evidence regarding the origins of the universe does not move us forward in our desire to explore that universe.

It's obvious that Bill Nye has successfully transcended his origins as a children's show host, and made himself into a passionate, dedicated spokesperson for science and scientific thought. If you ask me, science could do a lot worse.

- Sid

* 2014's Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation and his 2015 follow-up Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World.

Also available in grape and watermelon.

 

As per my previous posting, I met up with my friend Chris yesterday for a beer and a bite at the new Storm Crow location near us. My previous visit with Karli had been for brunch, so this offered a convenient opportunity to check out the evening action. I wore my Doctor Who "Angels have the phone box" t-shirt - after all, peeps got to represent.

Once again, it was extremely busy, which pleased me. It's good to see that a gamer/geek bar can have such a strong appeal.  And the gamer crowd was out in full force, to the point where I almost want to suggest that they should have made the tables a bit bigger - experience tells me that it's a bit challenging to fit a game and a couple of drinks onto a table for two.

They've modified the decor a bit:  they've moved the carbonized Han Solo over to the east wall, made the washroom doors look like the entrance to the TARDIS, and added a large Millennium Falcon model to the ceiling.*

The bar's commitment to geek theme is complete. The dinner menu includes items such as Deep One Salmon Burgers, the BLT-9000, Boba Fettucini (no, really) and the Cenobite Sundae**, along with an obscure Persis Khambatta joke from 1982.  As with their cocktail menu, the adventurous diner can request a 20-sided die from the wait staff and roll for the contents of their burger.

As the final touch for the departing guest, the Storm Crow considerately provides a little extra something - just in case the world outside has changed for the worse since dinner started.

- Sid

* Perhaps some large Star Trek items are in order as well, the place is a bit Star Wars heavy right now.  Just sayin'.

** Which appears on the menu as follows:

Cenobite Sundae:  no tears please, it’s a waste of good suffering. This sensorium-blasting ice cream delight will hook you with sprinkles, caramel, chocolate sauce and whipped cream... before it tears your soul apart.

Quite affordable at five dollars, but seriously, does that description necessarily make you want to order one of these things?

On location.

On my way to meet my friend Chris at the Storm Crow this afternoon, I passed by the following piece of location filming setup at the corner of Arbutus and 6th.  (My apologies for the composition in this hurried photo, I wasn't sure if the burly security guard just around the corner was going to have a problem with photographers.)

 

On one hand, this could easily be a bit of futuristic set dressing.  On the other hand, it's a phone booth - and let's face it, phone booths are becoming increasingly rare other than at airports and similar locations where large numbers of people are trying to avoid roaming charges while travelling, which makes them an unlikely candidate as a prop in a science fiction film script.*  However, that being said, it makes it an equally unlikely prop in a contemporary film - could it be for some kind of 60s setting?

So, here's my request to the motley crew of friends, relatives, casual browsers and Russian spambots** which comprises my readership.  If you should happen to be watching a series or a movie sometime in the next year or so (post-production times will vary) and spot someone sobbing into the mouthpiece of this phone-in-a-dome, please leave me a comment - just so I know whether or not this picture actually belongs on a science fiction blog.

- Sid

* William Gibson has commented that the first thing his more youthful fans will notice about his seminal 1984 cyberpunk novel Neuromancer is the complete lack of cell phones - "which I’m sure young readers assume must be a key plot-point.”

** They rarely comment, but when they do it's quite insightful.