In Meanwhile, down in Australia, I warned my readers.
So, don't be fooled by the cold snap in the U.S. As Al Jazeera America pointed out, "The record-breaking cold weather in the US doesn't mean the globe isn't warming, scientists say." Remember, weather isn't climate.Yesterday, the White House YouTube channel posted a video saying the same thing, and explaining the difference between climate and weather: The Polar Vortex Explained in 2 Minutes.
President Obama's Science and Technology Advisor, Dr. John Holdren, explains the polar vortex in 2 minutes—and why climate change makes extreme weather more likely going forward.Got that? Good.
Now, before I dig out my car, here's a summary of the past week's major weather events from Weather Underground: Weekly Weather Roundup: Hercules and Ion.
12/30-1/5: Winter Storms Hercules and Ion chill the States, while Christina moves across the pond. Tropical Cyclone Bejisa moves in the Indian Ocean, and California has its driest year on record.
Our weather (Seattle) is typical for this time of year. Dark depressing days of cold rain interrupted by dark depressing days of cold mist. It never really drys out and green and black algae slowly covers everything.
ReplyDeleteGood weather to read a book.
The Crazy Eddy probe has been brought down to New Scotland and the MacArthur has been retrofitted and is ready to make an Anderson drive Jump to the Mote. A departure ceremony is being held in the hangar bay under the repaired hatch doors right now.
Hallelujah be to the face of him.
"Good weather to read a book" Based on the passage you quoted, I can tell which one you're reading--"A Mote in God's Eye." Between you and Katja Novik on Finally, a Ringworld movie!, it's a great day for discussing Niven's famous novels here at Crazy Eddie's Motie News!
Delete"Yes. A Crazy Eddie solution. What else is there? One way or another, The cycles end now. Crazy Eddie has won his eternal war against the cycles."
ReplyDeleteFini !
"Crazy Eddie has won his eternal war against the cycles."
ReplyDeleteHa, ha, I wish. That hadn't even happened by the time of the sequel, "The Gripping Hand." In fact, the only time I've seen the cycles end in Niven's works for a species that he acknowledges having them (he doesn't do that for either Humans or Kzin in Known Space) is when the Pak have their cycles ended by the Core Explosion in "Destroyer of Worlds." That's when the similarities between the Pak and Moties become most obvious.
Well, that is how it ended. The mediator I quote had suggested the blockade and died believing that a paradigm shift had occurred. Now I have a sequel to find.
ReplyDeleteThe book was written in 1974. Had the book been written within the last few years perhaps the authors seeing how rudderless we are steering into our future would consider us trapped by cycles as well.
On another subject. A ring-world would require a substance with an enormous, impossibly enormous, tensile strength with which to construct the floor. The floor is essentially flat yet resists weight. Thinking about it the tension in the floor is essentially infinite. I read that others have pointed out that a ring would be dynamically unstable but I see solar sails on the periphery taking care of that problem. The big problem is the tension in the floor wanting to pull the ring apart if it spins to give gravity as it must. All the weight, the total weight of everything in the ring, would have to be resisted by the cross sectional floor area.
The sequel is called "The Gripping Hand." There's another called "Outies" that neither Niven nor the senior Pournelle wrote (instead, Pournelle's daughter wrote it). I'd have named this blog "On the Gripping Hand" except that several blogs with that name already existed, including one here on Blogspot. Instead, I had to go for Crazy Eddie, which works just as well.
DeleteI wanted to thank you for this excellent read!! I definitely loved every little bit of it. I have you bookmarked your site to check out the new stuff you post. climate
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome and thanks for bookmarking my blog, if you're telling the truth. I might just listen to the podcast at the link, too.
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