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A new Flash Gordon series! OK, I'm excited. There has always been something about Flash. Well, yes that something is that the various movies and serials are awful. But they are gloriously wonderful in their awfulness. I'm eager to see the new series but I am filled with trepidation. What if they try to make it good!? The thought is almost too much to contemplate. Right now I am taking comfort in the notion that it is the SciFi channel who are making it. They have a track record for making things cheap and tacky while still being faithful to the original.

I am in the process of recovering from the trauma of giving a presentation on what is new in nanootech and science generally with only a few days notice to prepare after our guest speaker pulled out. Basically I cobbled together a quick overview of the history of nanotech and then

littenz and I talked about a whole bunch of articles we had printed off from various science sites. It went OK I guess, but it isn't something I want to do again.

When I got home I happened to notice this article on recent off the wall inventions. I should have used it for a talk instead as it contains a list of previous articles about some of the stranger things that have been the subject of patent applications. It would have been more entertaining. Here is the list - just reading the titles is entertainment enough:
Bionic feet, brain decoder, auto-snug clothing, the 'suits you' cellphone, YouTube watermarks, hot lap prevention, edible RFID, covert iris scanner, personal TV censor, diamond-coated gadgets, computo-cooked perfection, Cellphone sunscreen, skateboard meets Segway, Taser gets tougher, razor light, wing-mirror cameras, body-wired headphones, rocket-repelling parachutes, tooth decay probe, laser healing, throwable game controllers, Microwave oven gun, Smart-card DVDs, Smart night scope, laser microphone, triple-standard DVD, ultimate body armour, Long-range stunner, tongue-o-vision, jellyfish injections, Flesh-burn sensor, fire-escape tubes, VoIP mangling, in-flight rearming, sense that fat, Designer speakers, throw-away parachutes, password-protected bullets, spinning touchdown, palmtop Feng Shui, Origami gadgets, mile-high showers, Hydrogen fuel balls, human cannonballs, the riot slimer, the bomb jammer, Apple's all-seeing screen, the TV-advert enforcer, the wing-sprouting drone, the drink-driver arm scanner, laser spark plugs, remote-controlled implants,the "I've been shot" gun, the snore zapper, the guitar phone, explosive-eating fungus, viper vision, exploding ink, the moody media player, the spy-diver killer, preventing in-flight interference, the inkjet-printer pen, sonic watermarks, the McDownload, hot-air plane, landmine arrows, soldiers obeying odours, coffee beer, wall-beating bugging, eyeball electronics, phone jolts, personal crash alarm, talking tooth, shark shocker, midnight call-foiler, burning bullets, a music lover's dream, magic wand for gamers, the phantom car, phone-bomb hijacking, shocking airport scans, old tyres to printer ink and eye-tracking displays.

Have you ever felt invisible? Nobody notices you so you aren't there. Ever remembered something that couldn't have happened? We are defined by our memories. We exist only when we are observed. Perception and reality are not the same thing. Perception is our own reality.

I could go on with the above. Live long enough and you hear all of these and more. In The Glamour, Christopher Priest explores all this stuff. He tells a story of perception from different viewpoints. Invisibility, memory loss, hypnotism, psychic power, magic - these all interact. I think it is meant to be profound, but it is just all very familiar. Yet, Priest is a talented author. Even if the themes are tired, he can still look into his characters and tell their story in a powerful way. He is pretty good at evoking images too. So it is a readable and enjoyable book. You also need to make allowance for it being written 20 years ago - some of these ideas have lost their edge. Sometimes that happens - it isn't going to stop me reading Priest's back catalogue as it get reissued.

A couple of "not sure why" issues today. There are things which you think you will like. Things which have an attraction and yet you do not pursue them. Why? - "not sure why". Sometimes it just happens. Today I caught up with a couple of things I had bypassed the first time around.

I have a lot of Sandman stuff. Not just the graphic novels but a whole heap of other titles that Neil Gaiman has produced set in that universe. I cannot get enough of it really. And yet until today, I had not read The Sandman Book of Dreams. I think my reluctance was because the short stories contained within the volume are not written by Gaiman. Instead it is a collection of stories by well known authors edited by Gaiman and Ed Kramer. I am a bit dubious of the commitment that authors show in such collections - you tend to get a real quality mixture where many of the authors just do not "get" the setting. Not so here. The authors all seem to be friends of Neil (who may have more friends than anybody else on the planet) as well as being fans of the series. The result is a wonderful collection. Varied and yet faithful to the original. Trouble is, I only want more now.

I don't know why I never watched the TV series Absolute Power either. Satirical British comedy looking at the bastards who run advertising companies. Plus it stars Stephen Fry and John Bird. Normally I lap this type of thing up yet when it was on I barely glanced at it. I watched an episode today and it was brilliant. It did for the advertising industry what The New Statesman did for the Tory party. Now I just need to get more.

We were supposed to be getting a guest speaker for the Phoenix meeting this coming Wednesday. A nanotechnology specialist from GNS was going to chat to us about the latest developments in the field. There has been a big international conference on the subject recently so he was going to be able to report developments from that. The problem is that the guy has cancelled on us. With only a few days to find something else and with the meeting notice already out there, we are going to try to fill the gap ourselves.

I have therefore been trawling the popular science sites for recent articles on nanotechnology. There are really a lot of them. Despite getting regular feeds from some of these sites, I was still surprised by just how many important pieces of work have been published recently. A lot of these are about some of the fundamental building blocks. There are things like nano-tubes that can be altered in size, single layer acoustic drum skins that could "weigh" a single atom, nano wheels with an axle that is just 4 atoms long and which actually roll, a nanowire based power source that derives power from ultrasound vibrations, microscopes that can discern different elements, 30nm wide sensors that can detect specific proteins and nano scale structures that can use light for computing.

These were all announced in the last couple of months. I have this feeling that the ground work for another fundamental change in the world is being laid. Interesting that all this wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for the accidental discovery of fullerenes - the basic building blocks of pretty much all this work. Lets hear it for serendipity.

It is a perfectly valid thing to do to make assumptions. It is just not valid to rely to heavily on one being correct. Over the years I have heard a number of children's or YA books being described as "works for adults too". Those descriptions are usually proved correct when I read the books in question. The authors have the skill to make their work appeal at multiple levels. The assumption I made about Un Lun Dun was author China Mieville would be the sort of writer who would attempt to make his work accessible in this way. I based this on the complexity of his adult fantasy novels. Un Lun Dun is advertised as being for younger readers. In my estimation it certainly is for younger readers - I would say about readers about 10-12 years old. The thing is, it does not really work for older readers. The layers I assumed would be there were not present. I could see the odd piece of writing where I think the author was attempting it, but it does not string together into a whole. It was all a bit flat and simple for me really.

So how was it as a book for kids? The thing is, I'm not sure I am qualified to comment. If you are looking for a fantasy for your 10 year old that tells a story in an alternative London, the only thing I can comment is that at 500 pages it seems awfully long for the target audience. If it helps, Mark the YA buyer at Dymocks-Wellington thinks it is pretty good without being great.

So there I am reading ASIM #28 and there is a story by Marissa K Linden called Rest Stop. It is a nifty little tale about the personification of a city. The city in question is San Francisco. My main thought as this became clear was "again?" It has been my experience that sf authors don't often identify a specific real city as the setting for their work. But when they do, San Francisco is by far the most popular choice. In my experience, it is way more common than the next nearest contenders London and New York. Of course I'm only looking at the written form here - if I was counting horror movies then Tokyo would be a major player.

So what is it that motivates authors make San Francisco as their setting rather than some fictional place name or just "the city". I have been to the city on the bay and it is a pretty cool place. But there are other cool places around the world. What is it specifically about San Francisco and its surrounding area that makes it force itself into stories? Like the story which started this thought, many of those stories have the city as an actual character. Perhaps it is character rather than "coolness" that is the key. It isn't easy picking a favourite but I think Pat Murphy's The City Not Long After does the best job of making a real living character come alive on the page. Perhaps I should go back there some day.

Here in the land of lost cats, the real estate business is pretty competitive. The agents who represent the area are always on the lookout to put up new signs. They certainly dropped enough advertising junk in my mailbox until I put up a no circulars sign. They still deliver various of the usual sort of gifts like branded notepads and pens. Today one of the companies delivered a six pack of hot cross buns to all the houses in the area. However, not as strange as last year when they delivered a pumpkin to everybody - complete with soup recipe pinned to them. I wonder what next.

Today marks 2 years since I returned home after Swancon xxx and started this lj. It would seem that in that time I have made 520 entries. Which is an average of 5 a week. I have to say I'm quite impressed with myself - I didn't really expect that I would keep going as such a pace. I must be due to all you nice folk out there in lj land.

Well that is just confusing. The new Wellington based A-League side is going to be called the Wellington Phoenix. As if those of us in the Phoenix SF society didn't have enough confusion with the name - particularly with the astronomical society but also the theatre sporting the same name. Not to mention that a yellow pages search for the region yields a dozen businesses with Phoenix in their name.

Having said that, it is great to have a team here in the capital. They can't do any worse than the Knights.

OK, this looks a little spooky. There is a gigantic hexagon at the north pole of Saturn. It is a persistent feature that is four times the size of the Earth.

Actually, hexagons are relatively easy shapes to explain in nature. If you have symmetric circular deformable features in close proximity they will tend to adopt a space filling configuration. The most circular space filling shape is a regular hexagon so that is the one that appears. For example, that is why honey bee cells are hexagonal. I know there has been some study into the way convection plumes in the magma of the Earth and Venus could act as a driving force for plate tectonics (or the lack of it in Venus' case). If you computer model this with a whole bunch of them, these plumes tend to adopt a hexagonal shape at the surface of the planet. Perhaps Saturn has such plumes in its lower layers but only at the pole does one make it all the way to the surface. It is always good to start the day with a little mental exercise..

I have just finished Egil's Saga. It is one of the major epic Icelandic sagas set in the heyday of the Viking raiders but probably composed in the 13th century - a mixture of history and fiction. I can't say I enjoyed it, but I didn't hate it either. The translation was very competent but the saga itself is pretty dull unless you are examining it for an analysis of the lives of the Norse - well a certain class of Norse noble really. I'm interested but not that interested. It was of some interest to see how consistent this saga was with more recent fiction set during those times. It isn't hard to see where modern writers are doing their research. I think I can safely say that I have done all the Icelandic saga reading I ever need to do.

I just ate a delicious pear. In my opinion, it was perfectly ripe. Pears are tricky things - they go from under-ripe to over-ripe very quickly. I was reminded that in my family, there was a notion that a pear was only perfectly ripe for half an hour. By extension from that, people would say that something was in its half hour meaning that it was at its peak - they applied it to anything, not just pears. I only ever heard this notion of a half hour ripeness and the extension used by members of my extended family on my mother's side. Has anybody else heard it? I do wonder if it something that our family came up with. But it could easily be a regional piece of wisdom that the family carried to a new land..

Many things get passed down in families. Obviously genetics and inherited objects but also knowledge. The thing is, the knowledge boundaries are fuzzy. Things like family history are fairly obvious - they relate directly to the family. But bits of lore or techniques (e.g. recipes) are a bit tricky to ascribe an origin to. Sometimes the things that you think of as family knowledge are more widely known. I suspect that this is more common than you might realise. Alternatively things you think of as common knowledge turn out to be just known by your family. That can be embarrassing at times. My parents had a habit of naming local landmarks according to their own system rather than using the "official" names. As kid, that confused me.

Does anybody have any family lore they want to share - proverbs or sayings and the like?

Primarily because nobody else wanted it, the Phoenix SF Society PIG is at my place this coming weekend - Saturday 31st from 7.30pm. PIG is the club's monthly social gathering which pretty much occupies itself with food and conversation. The main advantage of hosting the event is that I can invite whoever I like, so I invite you. If you are in the Welly region that weekend, then come along - there will be chocolate.

How much cabbage is too much? It is a question that I am confronted with from time to time. I like cabbage, but the large unit size, the short shelf life and my living alone mean that I am quite familiar with the prospect of either using a big chunk of cabbage or throwing it away. Today, it was definitely a case of just too much even for my appetite. I have well and truly reached my cabbage quota for the day, for the week, for the month.

It can be a bit like that with television too. I have many more shows hanging around on various media than I have time and the inclination to watch. I suppose I should be more discerning. Yet just as I keep buying cabbage, I keep trying out new shows. These are the latest to have come down the wires in the last week or two.
( Raines, The Riches and Blood Ties )

They come out from time to time. These big career collections. You know the sort of thing I mean. A big collection of the short stories across the career of a major author. I mean really big. Sometimes it is a collection of all the published works by the author and possibly some unpublished work as well. Sometimes it is a representative selection. But either way, it is big. I often struggle a bit with these collections. I read them because I like the work of the author but when so many stories by the same person are put together, you start to see the patterns. The themes , the plots, the character types - they start to repeat. No matter how good the individual stories are, the deja vu just gets a bit overwhelming and detracts from the work. The degree varies from author to author, but it always seems to be there.

I wrote the previous paragraph because I really want to make it clear just how good George R R Martin's Dreamsongs collection is. This very big volume is a selection of his shorter work from across his career mixed with some autobiographical material. The range and variety of the material is striking. There is no obvious repetition here. The stories march across the sf literary landscape and beyond with really only one thing in common - they are superbly written. From A Song for Lya to Sandkings to The Pear Shaped Man to stories of Haviland Tuf or the Wild cards and even to a story from the word of the Game of Thrones series, it is all good. From hard science fiction to fantasy to horror to the mainstream to many points in between and beyond - it is all here. The only reason you would get tired of reading this collection is because your arms would grow weary from holding its considerable bulk.

I have just confirmed that I am running the item for first time sf con goers at Conspiracy 2. Now I have been involved in these a few times in the past. They usually go something like this: "it isn't just the programme items", "people talk funny", "socialise/party hard", "look after yourself". Then it devolves into a bunch of hardened con veterans telling tales of past exploits more designed to scare than inform. That is all well and good, but I really think something is missing from these talks. For example, I have never seen anybody attempt to reassure new to con folks that their expression of being a fan is valid. It can be intimidating when you hear somebody talking about something you don't know about. You may doubt that you should be there. I want to reassure people that they are welcome and genuinely help them over the culture shock.

So I am asking you. What is the one thing you most wish you had been told at the start of your first con? Alternatively, what is the one thing that you were told that benefited you the most?

House numbers have been on my mind this morning. Specifically my house number. For your reference it is 169. I don't think divulging that will make me vulnerable to all those potential stalkers out there. :-)

I have decided to put up some supplementary numbers for my place. The number is clearly displayed on the letterbox out the front, but I share a driveway from that point with the neighbours and it isn't uncommon for people to go to them when they mean to come to me. I thought I'd put numbers where the path to my place diverges from the driveway. I was going to Lower Hutt today, so I thought I'd get the numbers. The first place had numbers but they were all 0s. Well there was one 8 but that was it. The second place had more choice in the size I need - they not only had 0s but also 6s, 7s and 9s - but no 1,2,3,4,5 or 8s - most importantly no 1s. I wasn't worried - I had four more places to try. Except it turns out that none of them stock house numbers any more. I guess I will have to make a trip to the big hardware megastore - I know they have numbers. Probably so many different ones that I won't be able to choose what style I want.

After all that I got home and checked my mail. I quite often get mail for somebody else. It isn't uncommon to get an envelope addressed to 167, 168 or 171. Easy enough to explain - the postie just being sloppy taking the letters off the sorted stack. I also get post for 196 - also easy enough to explain. Actually sometimes I get parcels for 196 that have been addressed to 169 - same sort of problem but not the postie this time. I also get mail for number 169 on different streets in the area - there are only three streets that go up that high. But today I got a letter for number 209. It was very clearly addressed - no chance of misreading it. How do you explain that one then? Ah well, time to go for a walk and do the postie's job again..

These two things in close proximity amused me. As there is lots of coverage of the Ruapehu lahar, this article about a volcanic crater for sale makes the headlines. Somebody with a good eye for a publicity opportunity perhaps. Although I'm not sure if it really is a selling point.

I have just read the latest Jeremy Clarkson book Born to be Riled. It is a collection of magazine articles. Clearly with Clarkson that means that they are mostly about cars. Now here is the thing about cars - they get outdated pretty quickly. So therefore does the writing about them. But a book published in 2006 should be fairly up to date and relevant. Except that most of the articles were written in the late '90s. It can be a little difficult working out exactly when each one was written because they are not in chronological order or any other order that I can see apart from "throw them in the air and see how they land". Clarkson doesn't let stuff go either. The articles repeat themselves a lot, particularly when it comes to cars that he either loves or loathes. That isn't when they are contradictory that is. Then there is the non-car stuff. I just never ever agree with his position on anything. Really, nothing at all. Heck I don't agree with a lot of the car stuff either. Which makes the fact that this book is compelling and hilarious reading all the more strange. I couldn't put it down. Jezza really is an astonishingly entertaining bloke. I think I need to go wash my eyes. Either that or go for a really fast drive.

Wow! Ireland have beaten Pakistan in the world cup. That eliminates Pakistan from progressing to the next stage. Given the way the Pakistani board tried to subvert the rules to get their drug cheats in the side, I have no sympathy for them at all. So now is the time to embrace my maternal grandfather's heritage and cheer the Irish on. Adding that to the Kiwi victory over England makes for a pretty good weekend of cricket.

Do you ever feel that you haven't taken the right career path? Do you get really frustrated when waiting for a plumber or electrician to arrive? Do you get even more frustrated when you get the bill that destroys your finances? Then don't read this story. I wonder what sort of non-work car this guy has.

I haven't been recording any books recently. There is a simple reason for that - I haven't finished anything lately apart from a few magazine type things and I don't blog those. I did try to read Black Oxen by Elizabeth Knox. I got about a quarter of the way through before giving up. It isn't worthless however. My computer case has developed an annoying resonance buzz in it when the machine is on. The noise goes away when I place the weight of Black Oxen on its case. Useful indeed.

I went into Wellington central today for my weekly trip around the book shops. Today is also the day that Borders opened their big new store on Lambton Quay so I added them to my itinerary. I didn't buy anything there though. Their sf section was quite large but it didn't hold anything new for me. In fact the authors represented on their shelves were a combination of the ones that I had seen round the other shops I frequent. This is no surprise. In the lead up to their opening they have been sending people around their competitors looking at what they have on their shelves - they have been caught doing it at a couple of places.

One of the things I like about the shops in town (apart from Whitcoulls of course, who I never frequent anyway) is that their sf sections are nicely complementary. They all stock in different ways with different emphasis, making the overall choice for the shopper greater. Borders could have gone down this route too. They could have used the intelligence gathered to create a point of difference for themselves in their range. But instead they are trying the power play - trying to shut out the existing businesses by covering their bases.

I have been telling anybody who will listen to support the locally owned shops - e.g. Unity, Arty Bees and even Dymocks (which is a fully owned franchise with completely independent buying power). These shops are owned locally by people who love books and hire staff who love books. I'm not saying boycott Borders - just don't make it your first choice or default book source. In any case, it is bright and sterile. Book shops should be cosy and intimate.

A team from Ryukoku University, Kyoto have developed a whole range of phosphorescent dyes which span the colour spectrum. They very earnestly explain how these can be used for emergency lighting. Somehow I think the market will find its own use for this technology.

The season changed yesterday. Just like that it went from mid summer to mid autumn in a very real and practical sense with wind and rain. What makes it a season change rather than just a rainstorm is that it was cold and it is still cool today. I see there is a weather warning for strong winds today - up to 120 km/h. That is proper equinoctial weather in my opinion.

It did prove to be the right sort of weather for a group of us to go to Bistro Breton last night. The meals there might be described as hearty - a good thing on a wild night but not so appropriate to a hot summer one. I enjoyed every bit of the meal. I was also amused by our waitress. Her service was good, but she had obviously been given instruction to include a bit of French in her dialogue with us to help with the atmosphere. The thing is, she was quite obviously not a speaker of the language. She seem quite uncomfortable even shifting linguistic gears to say "merci". You have to wonder why they bothered.

I went to the Maungaraki fair today. Actually it isn't called the "Maungaraki Fair", this year it is called "Maungaraki Grooves". I wonder if the name change increased the number of people going. I went because I was sure the Guides would have a stall selling biscuits. I know those biscuits have a huge amount of sugar in them but they are nice.

As usual at such things there were a number of community groups fund raising by selling barbecued sausages. As I wandered around I checked them out for possible purchase. You know - who has onions, who has mustard rather than tomato sauce, that sort of thing. I was a little surprised to see that the local National Party branch and their almost-MP were selling sausages too. But their sausages were 50% more expensive than anybody elses. Everybody knows that there is a standard price for fund raising sausages. Except, it seems, the National Party. Way to keep in touch with your electorate guys.

The path up to my front door is not very well lit at night nor is it very even. It has a couple of small steps and other discontinuities which potentially make it a bit unsafe. So I have been experimenting with solar powered lights to cast a bit of illumination on the path in question. The standard type of self contained cell and light units don't suit the layout very well but I now have a unit where the solar cell is separate from the lights. The cells are in a fake rock type thing and a cable with a dozen lights on it stretches about 10 metres. I have trialled it with a temporary fitting and the little lights along the cable give enough light and just nicely reach along the troublesome stretch of path.

Now that the trial is successful the time has come to fix the little lights more securely. This gives me a dilemma. You see the lights can be fitted horizontally pointing across the path or vertically pointing up in the air. Horizontal give much better illumination of the path but vertical just looks so much cooler. Common sense says mount them horizontally for safety but I have this strong urge to go with the pretty and mount them pointing upwards. A really strong urge. I like to think of myself as a fairly practical common sense person. This screws with my self image just a little bit.

There seems to be a little flurry of Ditmar related posts by my flist at the moment. It serves to remind me that nominations for the Sir Julius Vogel awards close at the end of March. Get nominating.

The trans-Tasman flights situation out of Wellington annoys me. There is so little choice. While everywhere else is getting the benefits of greater competition, the two airlines which operate into Welly are cutting services. But wonder beyond amazement they have a sale on at the moment and Welly is actually included for a change. So, if I want to get the best fares to attend Convergence in June I need to book this week. But this is where the lack of choice makes it hard. As far as I can see there are only two feasible choices. Everything else is much more expensive and involves going via Sydney or Auckland and I am so over killing time between flights at airport - it means the whole day is taken travelling for a 4 hour flight.

choice 1 - fly QANTAS and go just for the con - arrive friday morning, leave monday night. Obviously the cheapest overall and easiest to fit in with any work obligations. The work thing being important because I have no idea what I will be doing work-wise in June.

choice 2 - fly Air NZ and spend pretty much a full week in Melbourne. Sure it is a more expensive trip overall with accommodation etc, but a short holiday in Melbourne seems like a good thing to do. Also, the Air NZ planes are newer and more comfortable.

So what should I do? I'm soliciting opinions because I don't really want to book this far out unless I'm sure. But if I leave it, things get more expensive and increase the odds of an indirect flight. Go on, put your $0.02 in - this is what lj is good for.

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