dave-o – Page 87 – Snip, Burn, Solder Blog

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

I’ve been up since 4:20am on nothing but coffee, “Fun Size” Snickers, and positive baby vibes! Time for organic pizza and *more coffee*!!! *Whoooooooooooooo!!!*

(oh, and don’t forget to hit that No Starch Press LEGO promotion; scroll down one post for details)

ACT FAST and Save 40% on No Starch Press LEGO Books! #LEGO

My publisher, No Starch Press, is running a two-day promotion on *all* their LEGO books: Just shop through their site, use the coupon code BUILDIT during checkout, and save 40 percent: 40% Off All LEGO Books! | No Starch Press
No Starch has some *awesome* LEGO books, which I’ve talked about in the past (scroll down a bit to hit the LEGO book reviews). My top gift-giving picks are definitely Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide and Cult of LEGO for AFoLs (“adult fans of LEGO”), and all of Yoshihito Isogawa’s LEGO Technic Idea Books for *everyone.*

Live in MI? Vote NO on Props 5 and 6; Live Anywhere? Stop Being Politically Cynical

I continue to write a column for the Ann Arbor Chronicle. The latest one seeks to counteract a huge, manipulative ad campaign being run by a somewhat nefarious billionaire looking to fundamentally cripple our ability to functionally run Michigan.
Please Vote NO on Props 5 and 6; touch base with everyone you know in Michigan, and make sure they’re planning on voting *against* these shenanigans, too.
Larger than local politics, this billionaire’s efforts to hoodwink us really rely on our active connivance, by preying on our suspicions of the worst in each other. Even if you don’t live in Michigan–poor devils!–there’s something to be learned from what’s happening here:
The Ann Arbor Chronicle | In it for the Money: Kleptocracy

. . .
What [billionaire] Moroun is preying upon is our knee-jerk “common sense” conviction that government – which is the subset of ourselves that we charge with the job of keeping the house tidy so the rest of us can earn a living – is essentially incompetent. More so than mudslinging in political ads or lies during debates, it’s this core cynicism – a cynicism we each individually carry in our hearts and reproduce over and over again with pithily captioned pictures posted to Facebook, and re-shared links to spurious infographics, and caps-locked screeds – that’s poisoning us as a nation.
Listen, I love you, so I feel like can say this: Cynicism is the mechanical thing that dumb people do to seem wise. It’s a display of our most fundamental weakness: the ardent desire to be right.
Knee-jerk anti-governmentalism is the equivalent of thinking you’re precognizant because you can look at the succulent, exquisitely prepared dinner that’s been set before you, turn to your host and confidently claim: “In the next several hours, this luxurious banquet will be rendered into fecal matter by the action of our digestive systems.” That doesn’t make you a reliable forecaster of human events; it just makes you a boor. I don’t think any post-adolescent needs constant reminders of the basics: people lie, humans are fallible, puppies become stinky old dogs, and everyone dies. We do need to remind each other that we can and should live our lives, wash that dog, help each other recover from our failures, and correct the liars.
. . .

The day this column went live I got a *really* nice email from the Consul General of Canada complimenting me on my efforts. Don’t let anyone speak ill of Canadians to you. That whole damn nation is one huge class act.

Recommended Kit: Back to the Roots Oyster Mushroom Kit

My family gave me one of these Back to the Roots oyster mushroom kits for Father’s Day this year. I was not initially impressed: I babied the damn thing for a month, and got *nothing*; not a single damned filament of mycoprotein. Pissed off, I ditched it onto on my office desk down in the basement with the conviction to write a *very scathing* letter to the manufacturers. Then I got distracted for a month, and neglected both the kit and the letter writing. When I came home from the first day Maker Faire Detroit I discovered this:

Which, in just 24-hours, developed to this:

Which was *delicious* (as promised). So, I kept neglecting the kit. It’s three months later, and the kit just put out its *fourth* batch of mushrooms (i.e., twice as many as it’s supposed to). Yes, each batch is diminished in size from that first, but seeing as how I was only promised two, this strikes me as solid performance. I rate this a *Buy.*

UPDATE: About a week after this post went up I get an email out of the blue from one of the mushroom farmers at Back to the Roots, thanking me for my sticktoitiveness. Stand up folks all around, and clearly pretty responsive to customer concerns. I score this as another point in their favor.

War, Misery, #Steampunk, and Human Ingenuity & Dignity

Meet Private Samuel H. Decker:

His basic story is this: A Union artillery gunner, Decker lost both arms in a loading mishap in October of 1862. Three years later he had *built these new arms himself*. From this account:

With the aid of his ingenious apparatus he is enabled to write legibly, to pick up any small objects, a pin for example, to carry packages of ordinary weight, to feed and clothe himself, and in one or two instances of disorder in the Congressional gallery [where he was employed as a doorman] has proved himself a formidable police officer.

I’ve seen this picture crop up on more than a few blogs recently, under the heading of “This Guy is Fucking Rad!!!” and accompanied by *squeees* of how steampunk he is. And, on the one hand, he is really rad. On the other . . . jeez, it’s a little bit grisly if that’s *all* and *only* what we take away from this picture. It’s tantamount to looking at pics of female concentration campers and saying: “Damn, girl, you are skinny! What’s your secret?”
Listen: It is straight-up monstrous for any of us to even lightly draw an equal sign between what this man suffered in the name of human dignity and liberty, and the stories we write or how we may choose to dress up on a free weekend now and again. I’ve written about this a little before, and I still maintain that when we write steampunk and leave out a real and honest treatment of guys like Pvt. Decker, we’re doing a Bad Thing.
The above account of Decker’s extraordinary achievement–one of a slew of totally uncelebrated Americans who helped to transform doctors’ notions of the degree to which a “cripple” could return to “normal life”–is drawn from Photographs of Surgical Cases and Specimens, a collection of photographs (obviously) and case histories collected by the U.S. Army from 1862 on, and distributed as cards among medical professionals as a way of disseminating information on how a variety of docs and field surgeons had coped with the unprecedented carnage of the modern battlefield.
The Medical Heritage Library digitized the entire collection for the first time this year (the cards were widely circulated, so individual remarkable images–like those of Decker–have long floated around online, although often devoid of context). If you have a strong stomach and are interested in the real and remarkable nitty-gritty of the Victorian Age here on US soil, this is simply an incredible read:
Digital Highlight: Civil War photography from the Army Medical Museum | Medical Heritage Library

At the outset of the Civil War in 1861, the lack of experienced surgeons in the ranks of both the Union and Confederate armies represented a looming medical crisis. In 1862 the United States Army Medical Museum was formed, in part to advance practical research into new ways of treating and diagnosing the types of trauma that had become commonplace on the modern battlefield. Almost immediately after it was established, the museum’s first curator, Dr. John Hill Brinton, began collecting specimens from field hospitals and military grave sites. In the years that followed, individual portraits along with photographs of these specimens and accompanying case histories were disseminated to hospitals and medical institutions around the country.
In 1865, Lieutenant William Bell, who would later gain fame for his photographs of the American West, was appointed Chief Photographer of the museum. The artistic composition and quality of Bell’s work often bore greater resemblance to the celebrated portraiture of Matthew Brady than to standard, utilitarian medical photography. Under the direction of Brinton’s successor, Dr. George Alexander Otis, Bell photographed the portrait sitters and anatomical specimens in a studio at the museum, and was ultimately responsible for the majority of the images that comprise this collection.

And, of course, I’d be remise if I failed to mention my own steampunk novella–complete with frisky robots and crippled soldiers–available for Kindle via Amazon, and as both a handmade print and DRM-free digital edition (including Kindle) directly from me.

Limited Offer: Autographed and Personalized Books!

I don’t usually sell books directly through my website, but I make an exception for folks who’d like a personalized copy (They make *lovely* gifts!), but don’t want to drive to Michigan.
PRICE: $25, which includes FREE Media Rate shipping and handling (delivery in under 14 business days). Need it faster? I can do USPS Priority Shipping, which usually arrives in three days or less. (FYI: Clicking “Add to Cart” will take you to a new window showing your “shopping cart”; click “Continue Shopping” there if you want several books or to add expedited shipping.)
If you’d like the book made out to someone specific, please include his or her name below. Thanks!

Continue reading “Limited Offer: Autographed and Personalized Books!”

What’s Dave-o Talking About? @roborobb #scifi #writing

At the tail end of the summer I connected with Robo Robb via Maker Faire Detroit. He subsequently interviewed me for WXOU, which is 88.3FM in Auburn Hills, MI. I’d thought we were going to talk mostly about maker/DIY stuff, but it ended up being a really fun, wide ranging chat. Robo Robb is a really excellent, laid-back interviewer–which, compounded with my sprung sleep schedule (travel, new baby, etc.) meant that, about four minutes into the interview, I totally forgot that we were recording. When he grabbed his digital recorder off the table as we were leaving–the coffee shop had shut down and wanted to haul their tables in–I suddenly realized I had *no idea* what I’d said. So, everything at this link is gonna be news to both of us.
DISCLOSURE: This tape is long–more than an hour, as I recall–and I have a terrible, nasal Jewish Kermit the Frog voice and creaky geek laugh. It’s downright *punishing* to listen to me go on about this stuff. Also, I go pretty far afield on education policy and race in America and clockwork robot war crimes–the whole thing is a hot mess. But Robo Robb is an excellent interlocutor and solid dude. If you ever get a chance to talk with him, *jump at it!*
Interview with David Erik Nelson – Robo Robb
*thx Robb!*

XKCD’s “What If?” Is an Excellent Soft Sci-Fi Template

I *love* these about 32 billion times more than XKCD itself–which I do, in fact like. But these I *really* like. Like all good scifi, they address the human ramifications of physical, scientific facts. SF, more so than any other literary sub-sect, seeks to directly address the question of how humans react to the things humans have done, and to try to fully imagine and enact how that plays out.
Everybody Jump

What would happen if everyone on earth stood as close to each other as they could and jumped, everyone landing on the ground at the same instant?
—Thomas Bennett (and many others)
This is one of the most popular questions submitted to this blog. It’s been examined before, including by a ScienceBlogs post and a Straight Dope article. They cover the kinematics pretty well. However, they don’t tell the whole story.
Let’s take a closer look.
At the start of the scenario, the entire Earth’s population has been magically transported together into one place.
This crowd takes up an area the size of Rhode Island. But there’s no reason to use the vague phrase “an area the size of Rhode Island”. This is our scenario; we can be specific. They’re actually in Rhode Island.
At the stroke of noon, everyone jumps.
As discussed elsewhere, it doesn’t really affect the planet. Earth outweighs us by a factor of over ten trillion. On average, we humans can vertically jump maybe half a meter on a good day. Even if the Earth were rigid and responded instantly, it would be pushed down by less than an atom’s width.
Next, everyone falls back to the ground.
Technically, this delivers a lot of energy into the Earth, but it’s spread out over a large enough area that it doesn’t do much more than leave footprints in a lot of gardens. A slight pulse of pressure spreads through the North American continental crust and dissipates with little effect. The sound of all those feet hitting the ground creates a loud, drawn-out roar which lasts many seconds.
Eventually, the air grows quiet.
Seconds pass. Everyone looks around.
There are a lot of uncomfortable glances. Someone coughs.
. . .

These are also quite nice; the “one-way” mirror section is a little weak, but the final answer is rock solid: Short Answer Section

Neat! A Whole New Angle on Consumer-Grade 3D Printing

As we were working on putting together our Printrbot kit the other day, one of the guys mentioned this whole new tack on consumer-grade desktop 3D printing. Instead of building up parts via fused deposition modeling (which, in this case, means running ABS plastic feedstock–which looks like weedwhacker line–through a hot point that layers up your form using a rig that’s a lot like a pen-plotter), it uses stereolithography: Your part is super-quickly cured out of a bath of liquid, ultraviolet-sensitive resin by a UV laser beam. Very high resolution, crazy-slick tech–but well out of our price range. Anyway, he followed up with a link today, which I thought was worth sharing just to show that there’s more than one way to skin this cat. I’m increasingly wary of product-based Kickstarter projects, but this seemed too neat to ignore.
FORM 1: An affordable, professional 3D printer by Formlabs — Kickstarter

(*thx Phil!*)

Your #FridayReads: Get THE SILENT HISTORY on your iPhone, enter the STEAMPUNK III sweepstakes, and more #scifi

Fiction news!
First off, The Silent History–and app-based serialized fiction project–launched for iPad/iPhone this week. I’m one of the “Advance Reporters” contributing to the geolocated “Field Reports” (as of right now half the stories located in Michigan are mine–all centered around Ann Arbor). There’s a nice concise description of the project over on Contents Magazine:

The Silent History is a serialized electronic novel that debuted this week on iOS devices. The story at its heart is big: beginning right around now, some of our children stop developing language, and no one knows why. The novel is an archive of first-person accounts told by parents, doctors, teachers, and neighbors, and they’re released on a schedule, one at a time, from the beginning of the epidemic through to 2043.
Orbiting the body of the novel are dozens of “field reports”—stories written by readers and connected to specific physical locations. To read them, you have to show up, device in hand, at just the right spot on the built-in map.

That’s actually the lead-in to an interesting interview with the project editor Eli Horowitz, e.g.,:

Once you start thinking about it, the project is full of semi-comprehensible little resonances like that. I mean, it’s a lengthy book about the failures of language. It’s an oral history about people who can’t talk. It’s a digital book that is dependent upon engagement with the physical world. Etc.

If you want details (or to get the app), check out the official Silent History website and Tumblr blog. There’s also a video trailer with voice work by Ira Glass (!!!):

The Silent History from Richard Parks on Vimeo.

Also, along with Morgan Johnson and Fritz Swanson
I also have a story in Ann VanderMeer’s upcoming anthology Steampunk III: Steampunk Revolution, co-written with long-time co-conspirators Morgan Johnson and Fritz Swanson in the guise of our dear Giant Squid. The antho is sort of a post-steampunk re-imagining/re-examination of steampunk’s blind spots. You can buy it come Non-Denominational Gift Giving Holiday time, or enter the Tor.com Sweepstakes and win one pronto. Check out an excerpt from the antho’s intro and see what you think. FYI, I’ve got a story in the second antho in this series, too:
Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded
Finally, we’ve dropped the price on my novella Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate–you know, to celebrate Sukkoth, or something. Happy October, everyone!