#50363: Ronald Brak — 11/22  at  09:28 PM
Great White Wonder, I just wrote about crying statues in my blog. All you have to do is chip the glaze around the eyes on a porcelain statue and then stand it in liquid. The statue will absorb the liquid and then leak it from the eyes. It's religious quakery 101.

#50411: — 11/23  at  08:29 AM
Regarding the Weak Anthropic Principle:

The SF author Steven Baxter, in his recent novel _Exaltation_, offers a scenario where some half-dozen regimes of the early universe *all* produce life, with each of them dreading the next regime (including ours) as "impossibly cold and dark", but each managing to send a few survivors forward anyway....

Series readers only: This turns out to shed new light on the "real" reason for the conflict between Xeelee and human. Presumably somebody pointed out to Baxter that advanced humans could do just fine with the photino birds' white-dwarf regime, and we don't much like (super)novas either!

#50430: — 11/23  at  11:45 AM
(Series readers only: this latest novel conflicts in numerous ways with many of his earlier novels. But then if you can stomach <font color="#00B000">Baxter's approach to plausibility</font>, you can probably stomach these latest contradictions, to add to a vast and tottering heap...)

#50454: — 11/23  at  01:42 PM
"does that make the designer pro-choice?"

So many fertilised eggs or fetuses never make it naturally, any other interpretation is wrong.

Dave, Nix:
Thanks, I see that I have to catch up on Baxters production. I don't quite see how his latest (uni)version works from your description. But perhaps you don't like spoliers...

#50566: — 11/24  at  09:21 AM
Well, Baxter's already built himself some major escape hatches wrt continuity (and adds a new one in Exaltation), and I have to admit he's got some serious groaners (i.e., his "eusocial solution" seems incompatible with mammallian genetics, let alone humans' prior committment to high-K lifestyles). My own favorite groaner in Exaltation was advertisers and paparazzi projecting unwanted Virtuals into a spaceship. Indeed, he's got a pretty dismal view of human potential and wisdom in general. (Compare, say to Peter Hamilton's Edenist/Adamist universe, even facing the Reality Dysfunction.)

At the same time, SF in general isn't about prediction, it's about exploration of *possibilities*, and Baxter certainly has imagination and narrative skill! Personally, my favorite Baxter tales are the ones where he just goes whole-hog into bizarre environments, like Raft and Flux. I can ignore a fair bit of handwaving about technology, for a decent story. Admittedly, that "guided tour of the universe" pattern is getting old....

#50568: — 11/24  at  09:36 AM
On a completely different track, Jimmy Carter's latest book, "Our Endangered Values", reminds me again why he's my favorite modern president. In 200 pages, he barely mentions Shrub -- he just goes down the list of America's domestic and foreign policies, and without ever being vicious or even uncivil, he shows why the Bush agenda is utterly immoral if not evil. (I'm not even Christian, and I can well appreciate his moral discussions!)

#50611: — 11/24  at  02:41 PM
Dave,
Thanks again!

"it's about exploration of *possibilities*" Yes. For me, either I learn some more 'could be' vs what is, or are taken on a fun ride!

In my opinion Baxter is more and larger ideas, Hamilton is more interesting ideas and better written so I prefer him. But this time it looks like a Baxter book will be next read! I just have to find a universe with a faster timerate to visit briefly...

#50687: — 11/26  at  08:23 AM

The anchor soberly announced that "some people were coming to see the statue and bringing sick family members in hopes of healing them.

This could be part of the placebo effect. I read once that what passes for some disease is in reality the body’s defense mechanism. So if someone said they had a "cold", they would proceed to describe the bodies reaction to the "cold"; runny nose, sneezing or fever. If the body didn't think it had a "cold" then there would be no symptoms and the person would be cured. I just thought this was interesting. And no, I'm not a creationist.

And since this is an open thread. I wonder if you take requests? Have you ever thought of having a copy of the page navigation buttons at the top of the page too?