Fantasist's Scroll

This Friday Fun link is brought to you via Boing Boing.
If you dig Photoshopped pictures and cool landscapes, this Worth1000 Photoshop Contest is for you. These folks have taken beautiful landscapes and Photoshopped anthropomorphic details into it ala Bev Dolittle and others like her. These pictures are amazingly cool and very, very fantasy-esque. They’d make great desktop backgrounds or, even, just cool art on your PC.

Anyway, it’s fantasy enough for me and Friday, so go click the link!

Yeah, okay, so I’m a little late this week.
Still, I managed to find a fairly decent Friday Fun Link for you all. This comes from Boing Boing and is actually a list of links with a fun, but odd, theme: Animal Games. Basically, just a collection of games that you can play on the web which have animal themes to them. My favorite is worm battleship. Too funny.

Anyway, it’s Friday and you’ve got your link now, so go have fun.

Here’s a little hard science for you.
Ever heard of the Drake Equation? Well, among other things, it’s what good, old Gene Roddenberry used to justify all the intelligent, space-faring races on Star Trek. Mainly, though, it’s a hotly debated estimate of the habitable worlds that might have produced an intelligent species which we might possibly encounter in our galaxy. Named for Dr. Frank Drake, who devised the equation in the 1960s. The main purpose of the equation was to let scientists to quantify the uncertainty of the factors which might determine the possible number of extraterrestrial civilizations.
In recent years, the various inputs have been debated on not only their merit, but their optimisim. Many feel that they are overly optimistic, especially in light of the fact that we haven’t seen any of these alleged potential civilizations yet. Nor, really, any sure evidence that such a thing might exists. Still, as a writer, I like to err on the side of hope. The hope that one day, we may find other beings who live differently than we do. From whom we can learn, as well as we might teach. The potential synergy of such a meeting could be staggering! I imagine that’s why old Gene liked the idea so well himself.
Either way, the idea that Drake was right or wrong, can produce some great fiction.

Or, Why Everyone Else Fears Friday the Thirteenth!
I always thought it was because Judas was the Thirteenth Apostle or something like that. No, according to this article on GlobalPsychics.com, it has to do with the plot to suppress the Knights Templar. Hey, stop laughing! That’s what it says!! And, I quote:

The modern basis for the Friday the 13th superstition stems from Friday October the 13th, 1307. On this date, the Pope of the church in Rome in Conjunction with the King of France, carried out a secret death warrant against “the Knights Templar”. The Templars were terminated as heretics, never again to hold the power that they had held for so long. There Grand Master, Jacques DeMolay, was arrested and before he was killed, was tortured and crucified. A Black Friday indeed!

So, there you have it, Friday the Thirteenth is a global conspiracy! Personally, I usually have better luck on Friday the Thirteenth, but, then, I always have been a little out of step with the world. Oh, and here’s a link to some alternate ideas why everyone else is afraid of Friday the Thirteenth.
Enjoy it.

I do not know what this is.
No, really, I’m not quite sure what this is supposed to be. A game? The start of a site? Do they expect us to submit books and reviews to it? If so, they don’t seem to provide an interface to submit “found” books. Perhaps it’s just a thought experiment?
Tell you what, it’s Friday, and if you’re wasting time reading this blog instead of working, you might as well go check out the Interstitial Library yourself. If you figure it out, come back and leave a comment to help the rest of us!

It’s the birthday of one of the most prolific writers of the 20th century, Isaac Asimov, who was born in Petrovichi, Russia in 1920. He came with his family to the United States when he was three years old and his parents opened a candy shop in Brooklyn. Issac grew up to become a professor of biochemistry at the Boston University School of medicine and in 1950 he published his first novel Pebble in the Sky.

About the same time Asimov took part in writing a textbook for medical students and he found that he loved explaining complicated things in ordinary language, and so he set out to write about science for the general public, in language they would understand. He said, “Little by little my science writing swallowed up the rest of me.”
Asimov developed a regimen of working ten hours a day, seven days a week, producing between two and five thousand words a day. Asimov’s method was to write a book about any subject that interested him but which he didn’t fully understand. He used writing as a way of teaching himself about everything.
By 1970 Asimov had written more than a hundred books and he began branching out into areas other than science. He wrote about nuclear physics and organic chemistry, history, Greek mythology, astronomy, religion, in addition to his collections of limericks, mystery novels, autobiography and science fiction. By the time of his death in 1992 he had published more than 400 books.

Just more of that crazy floating lake.
This time, instead of World War Two bombers, I’ve filled the skies with fantastical fantasy airships. There’s just something about the surreality of islands and lakes hanging, unsupported in the sky that cry out for fantasy zeppelins scooting amongst the clouds.

It also seemed like a good way to start the new year. Frankly, last year was a long, brutal year and starting this new one with a bit of whimsy seemed appropriate.
Happy New Year!