Selections from my bookmarks

I've been bookmarking links for years. You know how it goes; you see something you want to read, but maybe you're not in the mood for it right that second. Or maybe you don't have time. So it goes.

My bookmarks are fairly..er.."organized". I have many folders, have had good intentions for all of the headings. Some of them pertain directly to particular writing projects (so I've got ones called "Rebel yell" and "Detroit"), at least three are for recipes I've almost certainly never cooked, and many are just things I thought might be interesting. One folder is called "inspiration", because of the piles of information in it, there's sure to be story fodder.

So, while looking at those bookmarks instead of editing The Last Song, I found a few I figured I'd share. In a way, they're loosely connected in my mind.

I thought these pictures were eye-catching, and would eventually lead me to some story or another. They're all from the 40's, if memory serves, though they're in color (!).

This one is from XKCD, and is a Radiation Dose Chart, using Sieverts, which is the unit for an absorbed dose, named after Rolf Maximilian Sievert, who studied the biological effects of radiation.

Here's A-E on The Observatory ~ The Tough Guide to the Known Galaxy. Links on the bottom take you to the rest of the definitions on the site. I'm glad I re-found this one, as I've been trying to build the vernacular for my science fiction space culture. The writer also has the blog Rocketpunk Manifesto, which looks to have even more great information on it.

And I forgot about this charming Forbes article, Why I Named my Dog After Neil Armstrong, published in 2012 not long after Neil Armstrong himself passed away.

Takes a licking...

I occasionally read opinions like this one, which feel we no longer "need" a Doomsday Clock.

And then I read articles like this one, about Soviet-era nuclear waste (including subs!) that will potentially be released into new sea currents due to climate change (I blogged briefly about that here).

And then I read about how trucks of waste are, apparently, regularly stolen in Mexico. This is medical waste, so Cobalt 60. If you open the containment box, the resulting dose would kill you in 3 days, according to many of the interviews I read. When they found the most recent one (that I knew of), the box was open.

Or how the Carlsbad, New Mexico Energy Waste Isolation Plant has all kinds of false positives on their radiation alarms, and may have a real one this time. 

Or in Fukushima, where they've just had the worst spill in 6 months, wherein 100 tons of irradiated water has leaked from containment. That's right; in addition to the original nuclear accident, rated at a 7 (the same as Chernobyl, for those following at home) , they also had a spill in August which received its own separate rating of a 3. I really wish people would stop believing Tepco when they say they'll handle it and step in with some actual effective oversight. Because California isn't going to fall off; it's going to glow. That and the rest of the Pacific.

Or Iran, who thank God just agreed to terms for their nuclear talks. Terms to talk about, that is. The nuclear talks themselves have not yet happened.

Or North Korea, who's been excavating at their underground test site. And who does whatever the fuck they want, apparently. But we're talking about Doomsday Clock potential here, not basic human rights.

I'm fairly certain people don't think much about nuclear accidents; I tend to be the only one I know who's alarmed. I think, despite knowledge of nukes as a Thing That Exist, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki that exist as a Thing That Happened, people don't much think about the implications of nuclear war. Theoretically, the US and Russia are not going to fire at each other any time soon. But can other, newer nuclear powers can be relied upon? Depending on who's got their finger on the button, the whole world is in deep shit, and has been all along, ever since Trinity.  Ever since Russia's Tsar Bomba.

The world itself needs a conscience, in addition to individual countries. If the Doomsday Clock can accomplish that, then it needs to. And we need it.


Oh, and a late addition: Whistle-blower fired from Hanford Nuclear Site. Hanford is where some of the Plutonium for Fat Man was produced, if I remember aright. And Hanford continues to have problems with its safety, apparently. Because you don't have whistleblowers if somebody wasn't doing something wrong, typically. Hanford's waste is threatening to leak into the Columbia River, which I don't think I have to tell you is a big goddamn problem. This whistle blower? She's the second one to be fired in the last six months. Over safety concerns. 

I don't mean to alarm you, but....

So apparently, Soviet Russia dumped a crapload of nuclear waste, 16 reactors, and "several" nuclear submarines in the Kara sea. Several is a sticky word; you've gotta figure, "a couple" is two (see: a pair), a few is three or more, and several is the next step, tending to be between 5 and 7, say. After that, you're working with "a lot" or "a bunch", or perhaps even "a metric fuckton". Most probably, the article writer didn't know the exact number, and/or wanted to break up the sentence with a different word. But I'm left wondering if "several" is more than or less than 16. Unfortunately, with global warming, apparently that sludge can (and likely will) reach other continents. One wonders how this will interact with/piggy back on/exacerbate the issues with the Fukushima Daiichi runoff.

(picture from publicdomainpictures.net)

Two Year Anniversary

Two years ago, I wrote the Pilot post of this blog.

At the time, I was under contract to publish an anthology of short stories with a small press. The date kept getting pushed back, though, and then the publisher went on hiatus. So I asked for my rights back. Said publisher seems to not be operating as such any longer. So, I guess I dodged a bullet?

I started this blog with the purpose of "building my platform", getting people interested in my writing, et cetera. My intent for this blog has always been more than Buy My Book! shilling, though. I wrapped up that very first post saying

"I feel that a good writer needs to read.  I believe that a good writer learns about the world, and never stops learning, regardless of whether there's a classroom. Writing, authoring, is a process and a journey, and I hope you enjoy coming with me. "

I still believe these things; it's one reason I'll post on seemingly random topics, like black market rhino horns and James Bond's pants. They're things I've learned about, and find interesting, and all of that is story fodder. I will probably never write a story that revolves around said pants or rhinos, but it might come up in conversation. I might throw it in for flavor, a cultural reference instead of a literary one.

So, to those of you who are still reading, thank you! To those of you who are new, thank you and welcome! I hope you enjoy my crazy train of thought here, and I hope to one day be able to write a post in which I do, in fact, suggest that you buy my book.