We’ve Got a Friend.


“Scientists had predicted Earth should have Trojans, but they have been difficult to find because they are relatively small and appear near the sun from Earth’s point of view.” By way of a friend, NASA researchers have discovered Earth’s very own trojan asteroid. (It’s the green circle above.) “Trojans are asteroids that share an orbit with a planet near stable points in front of or behind the planet…The asteroid’s orbit is well-defined and for at least the next 100 years, it will not come closer to Earth than 15 million miles.“

I Said Cut, You Hack.


“Anyone who knows me knows I would never read a comic book. And I would especially never read anything created by Kevin Smith.” — Tim Burton. “Which, to me, explains f**king Batman.” — Kevin Smith. Also by way of a friend, the 30 harshest filmmaker-on-filmmaker insults in history. Some of these are questionable (who cares what Vincent Gallo thinks?), but there are a few gems here and there. “I HATE that guy! Next question.” — David Cronenberg on M. Night Shyamalan. (Director Bowie via here.)

For the Long Haul.


“Look back 100 years. If you could have had James Clerk Maxwell and Guglielmo Marconi and Albert Einstein sit around a lunch table in the early 1900s, they would have had all the math necessary to create an iPhone. But there’s nothing that they could have done to characterize the integrated circuits, the satellites, the communication links or the Internet, to draw a plan that would have led them to an iPhone until Apple introduced it 100 years later. That’s how I see where we are with this.“

From the folks who brought you the Internet, DARPA announces the 100-Year Starship Study, offering $500,000 in seed money to whomever comes up with the best plan for developing the technology needed for interstellar travel. “To stimulate discussion on the research possibilities, DARPA officials will hold a symposium that brings together astrophysicists, engineers and even sci-fi writers so they can brainstorm what it would take to make this starship enterprise a success.“

Turn the Machines Back On!


“‘We’re not completely out of the woods yet, but everybody’s smiling here,’ the institute’s chief executive officer, Tom Pierson, told me today.” Also in good space exploration news, SETI’s Allen Telescope Array is now back online thanks to a wave of private donations. “Among the contributors are Jodie Foster…science-fiction writer Larry Niven…and Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders…’It is absolutely irresponsible of the human race not to be searching for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence,’ Anders wrote in a note accompanying his contribution.“

Riled at Heart.


“To ‘direct’ something implies more to me than weighing in on the sad state of current affairs with a still shot of the United States Capitol and some sound effects, but the gesture is there.” Director David Lynch briefly weighs in on recent events in Washington. “‘Has Lynch ever before offered something so overtly political? Or is this actually post-political — a means of saying, ‘The system isn’t broken, it’s finished, who’s up for a song?‘”

That’s No Moon.


“[T]he detail is stunning in his original high-res version. You can see craters on Tethys, and the thick atmosphere enshrouding Titan (including the north polar haze cap). The image is very close to natural color, so this is approximately what you would see if you were there (shortly before freezing and asphyxiating, but what a way to go).“

Propaganda or no, a fully-armed and operational battle station would seem to be approaching Saturn’s moon of Titan in this breathtaking image by Gordan Ugarkovic, taken from data by the Cassini spacecraft. “Spacecraft and observatories store their images on hard drives, and anyone with access and the knowledge of how to process that data — no simple task, I assure you! — can use it to do their own work.“

Brother from Another Mother.


“The debate about the parentage of the bastard Jon Snow has been one of the biggest concerning the series. In SSM #159, George R. R. Martin admitted that Jon’s parents will eventually be revealed in later volumes of the series. Thus, the reader can assume that the secret of his parentage will play some important point in the plot, and that there has been some sort of foreshadowing leading up to this. Currently, there are three pairs of parents that seem likely.“

With the first book under my belt, I’m now fighting a losing war to stick to my original plan of not getting ahead of the TV show before Season 2. And, while A Clash of Kings remains unbought so far, I did read this extensively-evidenced and seemingly definitive essay on the parentage of Jon Snow. (It draws on the first three books, but mostly on Game of Thrones.) After reading this, I’d be very surprised if this wasn’t the truth of it.