Links: 2020-08-26

It’s been awhile since the last “Links” post, so there are more items than usual.

Science Fiction

• The People’s Space Odyssey: 2010: The Year We Make Contact. Another article that makes me feel better about my inability to be terse in reviews. This is over 60,000 words. But it really is a great and overlooked movie. (I like it more than the author of the article, even, though I couldn’t write 60Kwds on it.)
• Book Review: Doctor to the Stars, Murray Leinster (1964) | Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations. This is good for what ails you.
• Henry Kuttner: A Memorial Symposium | SF MAGAZINES. Haven’t had a chance to read the fanzine this points to, but it’s a good article which encouraged me to at least get the fanzine.
• Firing the Canon: An Appreciation of H. P. Lovecraft | Adventures Fantastic. I might have put it differently, but this basically expresses several of my own thoughts.
• Thank You — Yes You — For Helping Fill Hank Davis and Christopher Ruocchio’s Cosmic Corsairs. Black Gate informs me that I’m famous. Shucks, t’weren’t nothing. (Really. But I tried.) It sure made my day, though. 🙂

Science

• Can energy be sucked out of a black hole? | Space. A singular source of energy that’s only “science fiction” for now.
• Earth’s moon had a magma ocean for 200 million years | Space. Let’s go surfin’ now, everybody’s burnin’, wow…
• The moon is 85 million years younger than previously thought | Space. …and the magma ocean affects the calculation of the moon’s age.
• Astronomers discover South Pole Wall, a gigantic structure stretching 1.4 billion light-years across | Space. This is kind of like looking at nebulae and seeing horseheads but it’s still interesting.
• Planetary Collisions and their Consequences [Centauri Dreams]. So, in addition to the billion or trillion other factors, it also helps to be a planet of just such a size and to get hit by another planet of just such a size (and, really, at just such a time), and then, voila!, life on Earth. Must happen everywhere, all the time.
• NASA jettisons Apollo moon landing stats to reach 300th American spacewalk | Space. The corruption of science, history, and reality-in-general continues.
• Is America Ready for a Global Pandemic? – The Atlantic. How could we be? No one could have seen this coming. As this July 2018 article shows.

Other

History

• The History Blog » Rare element solves mystery of Roman clear glass. Science and history team up again.
• The History Blog » Anglo-Saxon eyesalve cuts swath through bacterial biofilms. Onion? Check! Garlic? Check! Wine? Check! Bovine bile? … Dang.
• The History Blog » Core reveals source of Stonehenge sarsen stones. One man’s garbage is another man’s scientific discovery.
• The History Blog » Tiny avian dinosaur is actually medium lizard. As I posted in an earlier “Links” post, I felt there was something weird about this.
• The History Blog » Marine dino found inside stomach of other marine dino. Moving to actual dinosaurs (or big critters, anyway), this dining dino duo gives a whole new meaning to having something you eat disagree with you.

Sports

• Jim Harbaugh, Scott Frost have a point: This season, a football field might be the safest place for players | Sporting News. Depending on what you count, there’s only about a week and a half or three weeks to go if the wheel’s don’t fall off. I’m still prepared to be crushingly disappointed but I’m also still hoping and I completely agree with their point. I feel sorry for folks in B1G country and I enjoyed their games, too, but as long as there’s ACC/SEC, I’m good.

Humor

• Calvin and Hobbes: A Baker’s Dozen Under Diverse Headings. The Irresistible Child and Immovable Parents: Inquisitive Minds, Adventurous Souls, Another of Life’s Mysterious Quirks, Safety Last, Downbringing. Calvin Meets the Daughter of Christine: Part I, Part II. Calvin, an Athlete and a Scholar: Basebasebaseball, A Student of the Game, Card-Carrying Genius. Calvin and Clothing: Footloose and Pantsy-free, Jane’s a Pain, Disproportionately Angry.
• xkcd: Campfire Habitable Zone / xkcd: Mathematical Symbol Fight.

Music

Sanity warning: do not watch the following videos.

This is a serious (well, actual, anyway) collaboration while the rest are mashups.

William Shatner and Canned Heat – “Let’s Work Together”

I should have picked just one of the Slayer mashups and it would have been the Katrina and the Waves one except the B-52s mosh towards the end makes it a tie after all.

Slayer/Katrina and the Waves (feat. Joe Satriani) – “Chemical Warfare (Don’t It Feel Good?)”

Slayer/B-52s – “Raining Lobsters”

Those are hilarious and great in their ways but this one is actually disturbingly good as a serious song.

Ratt/Marvin Gaye – “I Heard it Round and Round the Grapevine”