Fantasist's Scroll

Okay, this is more “science-fiction” than fantasy, but…
Aw, it’s Friday and I need a cool link for you all. So, here is, thanks to Gizmodo, a link to an article about a moisture ‘vaporator. Yeah, that’s what I said! This compact device pulls water out of thin air, just like, well, science-fiction. So, now, it’s not impossible for me to concieve of water “farmers” on Mars, or even more distant planets. How cool is that?

Cut me some slack! It’s Friday and the link is fun, so click on it!

Yep, that’d be me.
I did this with a free version of a neat 3-d program called Vue d’Espirit. And, I did it all myself! I’ve really always wanted to do this kind of thing, but, well, personal reasons kept me from getting into it. If I showed too much interest, it was frowned upon by someone I cared about, who saw it as a kind of competition. Which is sad, really, because we could have had fun doing this together. Or, maybe not. In any case, it’s something that has interested me and, when I saw this free version in a magazine, I decided to play around with it. Not bad, considering it took me about an hour and I used nothing but free software.

StarTrek tech come to life.
It looks like the promise of “holographic data storage” is coming true. According to this article on ExtremeTech, a company by the name of InPhase is releasing 200GB drives that are based on holographic technology this week. What that means is that instead of using spinning media, they use moving lasers to store data in a fixed matrix. Primarily, this would be Write Once, Read Many data storage, which is used as an ultra-safe backup or for special imaging or archiving applications. The drives which are making their debut this week will be available to customers in early 2006. But, that’s not all….
According to this article on Engadget, they have also been working on rewriteable holographic drives as well. (Okay, I couldn’t find that reference, either, but the original link said it was there somewhere.) And, they’re talking about having a 1.6 TERABYTE drive available by 2009.
Yet another example of how science-fiction is becoming a reality.

I have a lot I could write about.
If only I felt comfortable writing about it. Too much drama in my personal life and too many scary situations in my business life to really feel comfortable talking about here. (You can read more about that at The Diary of a Network Geek, if not now, soon.) So, why am I posting? I just can’t help myself.

I got an e-mail from The Writer’s Almanac this morning, as I do every morning, and it had two interesting birthdays in it. First, there was this about Hans Christian Anderson:

It’s the birthday of Hans Christian Anderson, (books by this author) born in Odense, Denmark (1805). Although he was most famous for his fairy tales, he never thought of himself as a children’s writer. He wrote novels, plays, poetry, and travel essays, many of which were at least as successful as the fairy tales. Although Europeans and Americans loved his work, he was scorned in his own country during his lifetime; Søren Kierkegaard once published a scathing essay about him. He never married, and when he became ill late in life, he went to live with a family on the coast near Copenhagen. He had breakfast in his room one morning, and was found in bed a little while later, dead, holding a love letter someone had written to him 45 years earlier.

That was interesting in and of itself, to me, because I never think of the writers of fairy tales as being “normal” people who might have had lives that included pain. In particular, when I think of Hans Christian Anderson, I think of the movie that starred Danny Kaye. How could you associate that with unrequited love?
But, what was really interesting was the birthday note that follow later in the e-mail:

It’s the birthday of the Italian writer Giacomo Girolamo Casanova, born in Venice (1725). He spent the final years of his life as a librarian in a cold and drafty castle in Bohemia, and he set out to write his memoirs because, he said, it was “the sole remedy I believed I possessed to avoid going mad or dying of sorrow.” He left 4,000 pages of manuscript behind, some of which was later published under the title The Story of My Life.

What an interesting contrast. Two lovers. Two very different lives. Two very different kinds of love. I never would have thought of these two very different men ending up the way they did. Perhaps it is my own life that makes these stories resonate so with my own life right now. I do not know.
To be honest, I feel lonely. I’m thankful that I have my dog back, because she eases some of that pain. But, it’s different. So different. Am I lonely enough to write 4,000 pages about unrequited love and loneliness? No, probably not. But, it is a feeling I understand these days.

(Yeah, okay, so I’m being a little lazy and I put this on my other blog, The Diary of a Network Geek, first. So sue me!)

My darling Hilda has returned to me.
It’s a long, complicated story, but I got my dog from the airport this evening. She was a little dehydrated and scared, but otherwise okay. I could barely restrain her from jumping out of the crate long enough to get a leash on her, but I did. She sat in the passenger’s seat and panted the whole way home, even though I had cool air blowing on her. As soon as we got home, I changed and got her bathed, because the trip had taken its toll on her. By the time I was drying her off, though, she was already getting back to being her playful self. As I type this, she’s laying at my feet, the absolute picture of a faithful companion.
As you might have guessed, I love my dog very much and I’ve missed her beyond belief these past several months. I’m beside myself with relief and joy to have her again.
Many thanks to everyone who was there encouraging me, placating me, and praying for me.
Now, you’ll have to excuse me while I go pet my dog.

Oh, yeah!
After a few bumps and bruises, we’ve upgraded to WordPress 1.5. It was a little touch and go for a bit there, but the upgrade is well worth it. You readers won’t see any difference, but all the backend stuff has changed. It’s very, very nice. And, it’s still free.

Yep, we’ve got one.
Considering the funding cutbacks at NASA, this seems like a really “forward thinking” document to me, but the United States Government has a non-armmament space treaty. Or, more specifically, “TREATY ON PRINCIPLES GOVERNING THE ACTIVITIES OF STATES IN THE EXPLORATION AND USE OF OUTER SPACE, INCLUDING THE MOON AND OTHER CELESTIAL BODIES“. Basically, it says that we’ll all play nice up there. It’s not clear who actually signed this treaty, but it does mention that there are copies in the following languages: English, Russian, French, Spanish and Chinese. I find that all interesting in light of the so-called “Star Wars” program and all the research the Russians did into space-based weapons platforms.
Anyway, it’s the most fun link I could find this Friday. So, go have fun reading the boring government document!

A new way to fund NASA?
Well, I’d sure buy some! Hey, why not? The side benefits of the space program have always been a reason to continue that kind of work, so why shouldn’t they make some money off it?
Okay, so they don’t have Martian Sea Monkeys, yet, but, according to this article on Slashdot, they might. At least, they’re convinced enough of the possibility of microbial life that could survive freezing for thousands of years that NASA is talking about sending probes to retrieve the little buggers from the Martian “ice ocean” that’s been recently discovered. Personally, I think it would be cool to have Martian life in your very own home, like those “living dinosaurs”, the Triops.
Well, I guess, we’ll have to wait for a Mars mission to know if they exist, but the thought sure is fun!