robert.admin – Page 137 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

July 12, 2015

Liftport (Review)

strongly believe in the premise of Liftport, the idea that we need a space elevator to cut out the random rocket foolishness (and even the Nasa-dogged shuttle program). We need a way to get up into Earth orbit, something cheap and unrisky and everyday. Liftport is essentially a PR piece put together by a wide range of authors. A few of them are scifi pieces, stories set around (and in the environment) of a working space elevator. Most of them are papers aimed and investors and the public, discussing all aspects of SEs, from implementation to cost to payoff to […]

July 8, 2015

Kedgewater Deep (DOG EAR)

e’re still test-marketing this idea. In the original Tubitz and Mergenstein, the town of Tortuga-Two was buried in a sinkhole. Three streams flowed into it, waterfalling into an underground pool. Under the overhanging ledge of crust the buildings huddled. It was the perfect space pirate base. Of course, I can’t do that in the new one. Now, the story takes place firmly on a single planet where sailing ships skate across lava plains like iceboats. It’s a fun setting for a fun book. But that pirate town I spoke of – I changed it so it lies in a cave […]

July 5, 2015

A Watch-dog of the North Sea (Review)

eading lists sometimes work in strange ways. Was at work waiting for one of those stupid lunchtime meetings (I hate when people do these for the dedicated-facetime theater of it) which got cancelled. And, no, I didn’t bring a book (violating my own rule that the weight of a book is not nearly as heavy as the weight of time without it). So I didn’t have my book with me for lunchtime. But I did have my work laptop and access to Project Gutenberg. So, before heading out to lunch, I poked around for something to read. Found something curious […]

July 2, 2015

Block (DOG EAR)

uthor: “So here’s the setup, kid. You know that the count locked in his castle has been cheating his workers. You passionately argue the point, win over the peasants, and lead an attack on his castle. Got it?” Baronet Mergenstein Von Graftin: “How will I do that? What do I say?” Author: “You’ll figure it out. Okay, ready on the set? Lights! Camera! Action!” Mergenstein: “…” And that’s rather what happened to me over the last few days. As noted, a character had to convince flunkies that they were being taken advantage of, that they should rise up and lose […]

June 30, 2015

Two for one (6/30/2015)

onight was the big show – Venus and Jupiter lining up just about on top of each other, a perfect astronomy night. And our club was going to take advantage of it, setting a line of telescopes up for the public to view around a lake at Seminole State. JB and I got there early. It was our first true remote setup, and our first setup with a group. In this, it went easy. The telescope was lined and leveled in no time (I’ve had plenty of practice) But we were early so we sat in our chairs and read […]

June 28, 2015

White Wing (Review)

ere’s another entry for my review mid-eighties, mid-level scifi, this time a novel by Gordon Kendall, White Wing. Endless Galactic warfare is pretty much the law of the ‘verse here, namely by the League against the evil Sejiedi. No crazy creatures here, no. It’s humans on all sorts of different planets, each with tiny differences. For the League, these planets (or confederations) fly space fighters in wings denoted by color (i.e. blue, red, etc). And the late-coming Earthers? We’re White Wing. And we’re hated. I guess it goes back to the fact that our planet was destroyed two hundred years […]

June 27, 2015

OpsLog – FEC – 6/27/2015

he FEC. Great railroad. The only thing the host, Ken Farnham, could do to make it better is to change the benchwork height. See, Cocoa yard is at a great height to switch, but when it comes to using it for banging your head, it’s just a little too low. I have to lean in to crack myself in the skull, over and over, when I goof up. See, I was running 915, the train that leaves Cocoa and runs down to Buenaventura to do a lot of switching. It’s tricky, the usual balance of pulling stuff out and putting […]

June 25, 2015

Echo (DOG EAR)

was feeling pretty down. I’d read The People’s History of the United States – not the apple-pie Sousa march towards patriotism you’d expect. Then, watching a clip of Good Will Hunting (the friend who’d recommended the book had pointed it out), Robin Williams mentions Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomski as another good book. Curious, I ordered it from the library. It’s just as depressing as People’s History, a discussion of how propaganda in media occurs, how it always benefits the rich and entrenched, all that. As a liberal, sometimes the world can be a bleak and depressing place, and I […]

June 24, 2015

OpsLog – LM&O – 6/24/2015

t was quite the night at club ops. We had a lot of people, always thankful of that. For once I wasn’t the dispatcher, just a local running to Zanesville and beyond to Carbon Hill. A good run – engines worked well and I knocked off the switchlist quite orderly. Stuff went where it was supposed to go and I made clean moves for it all. Only surprise – coming back to Zanesville from Carbon Hill – had clearance to work all tracks (since I needed to work Bolton Box, pull a bunch of outbounds off the head-in track for […]

June 21, 2015

War World (Review)

illiam Dietz is an established scifi author with something like forty books to his credit, but everyone starts someplace. His origin was War World, an interesting first effort that launched his career. It’s been sitting one of my book boxes for ages, since the mid-eighties. Anyway, out it came for another read. It’s a fun book, I’ll give it that. In the eighties, we were still gaga over dashing Han Solo (back in the days when he shot first). Now, after thirty years of grim realism (usually with sprawling worlds of mile-high slums and spaceships that take decades to get […]