Build bases on the Moon, instead of going for a week
24 May 2024
NASA is dead set keen to return to the Moon. But their current plan, called Artemis, is dead set crazy, writes Polish-American entrepreneur and writer, Maciej Cegłowski:
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to wonder what’s going on here. If we can put a man on the moon, then why can’t we just go do it again? The moon hasn’t changed since the 1960’s, while every technology we used to get there has seen staggering advances. It took NASA eight years to go from nothing to a moon landing at the dawn of the Space Age. But today, twenty years and $93 billion after the space agency announced our return to the moon, the goal seems as far out of reach as ever.
I only know what I know about NASA’s proposed Artemis crewed flights to the Moon, from the occasional glance at headlines on the subject. Needless to say, that knowledge isn’t much to write home about. That’s because the prospect doesn’t really excite me. Artemis seems like little more than a re-run of the Apollo flights of over fifty years ago.
If we’re to return to the Moon again, I’ve always thought it should be more permanently, and on a grander scale. As in bases on (or under) the lunar surface. Sending a couple of flights back there for a week’s stay, seems pointless. On top of that, the cost of doing so today has ballooned. But why? Is no one stopping to think about this?
If humanity is ever to progress, yeah, hmm, we need to set ourselves some pretty ambitious goals. But we need to think a bit bigger. Re-hashing the Apollo missions isn’t thinking big. Combatting climate, disease, and poverty, for instance, make for better goals. After that, what about reaching for stars, literally. Not just the nearest celestial body to Earth.
RELATED CONTENT
Running clubs, the IndieWeb of the dating realm?
23 May 2024
Konrad Marshall, writing for the Sydney Morning Herald:
Run South Yarra co-founder Tom Adair is wary of any suggestion that run clubs are the new Tinder, yet relationships are born here, and side-by-side chats while jogging, he notes, are definitely less pressurised than face-to-face interactions. (Plus, you can always pick up the pace and scoot away if a chat isn’t going well.) “It’s almost like a nightclub, but no one’s drunk, and you’re actually making meaningful conversation,” Adair concedes.
If you can stomach the unearthly start times, six o’clock in the morning, maybe earlier, weekends included, it all makes sense. You’re sharing a bonding experience with likeminded people. How could run clubs not be somewhere you’d potentially meet a romantic prospect? Aside from the fact you’re there to run of course, not anything else.
But here’s a thought. Granted, one that could probably only occur to me. If there is a movement online, a turning away from social media, a return to the small web, and personal websites, might the rising popularity of run clubs represent a similar movement away from dating apps?
Imagine meeting, then building rapport with someone — maybe in time, more — in a safe group setting, while partaking of a shared interest, such as running? Though it could be something else. Who needs a meddlesome, intrusive, dating app, for that?
RELATED CONTENT
My 2001: A Space Odyssey remake joke post trained Google AI?
22 May 2024
Two and bit years ago, I spotted an entry on Fandom about a “remake” of the Stanley Kubrick sci-fi classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Being a 2001 fan, I naturally wrote about it. I’ve had a lot of fun with the post ever since. People stumble upon it every now and again, and link to it (and my warmest thanks to you all, by the way).
The thing is though, despite the Fandom suggestion a remake had already been completed, it never happened. NOR are there any plans whatsoever to do so. Who would dare? The original Fandom post was a joke. Some light hearted humour. I mean, a 2001 remake, featuring half the cast of the original Star Wars films? Come on: who are we kidding here?
Though I would pay money to see a 2001 remake with Harrison Ford voicing Hal. “Listen your worshipfulness, I’m not opening the pod-bay doors, coz I heard you bitching about me earlier.”
Anyway, the other day I noticed another little traffic flow into the post. I froze in trepidation however, when I saw the source this time was from Reddit. With some apprehension, I clicked through to Reddit, expecting to read a post hauling me over the coals for daring to suggest a 2001 remake was in the offing. Or worse.
Instead, I learned that some Redditors had discovered either my post — or, more likely — the Fandom entry, had been fed into the recently launched Generative AI version of Google’s search engine. Which was treating these satirical posts as fact. In other words, Generative AI search results were saying that 2001 was remade in 2022.
If ever there were a story about the dangers of runaway, rampant, artificial intelligence, could 2001 be anymore prescient? What more can I say, other than to quote half the cast of the Star Wars films: I have a bad feeling about this.
RELATED CONTENT
2001: A Space Odyssey, artificial intelligence, film, technology
She is the Earth wins NSW Premiers Literary Awards book of year 2024
22 May 2024
She is the Earth, a work of verse, written by Yankunytjatjara (South Australia) poet Ali Cobby Eckermann, was named the NSW Premiers Literary Awards book of the year, on Monday 20 May 2024.
Award judges were unstinting in their praise of Eckermann’s writing:
She is the Earth is a stunning verse novel that takes the reader on a journey of love and grief, through land, sky and water, and all places in between. This surreal creation story contains many other stories and worlds within the whole. A story of breath and breadth, it is both other-worldly and inner-worldly, with the distinction between the two realms fuzzy and flowing across each other to astonishing effect.
RELATED CONTENT
Ali Cobby Eckermann, Australian literature, literary awards
An indie guide to the IndieWeb, by Wing Pang
22 May 2024
Sydney based product designer Wing Pang, whom I wrote about last week, has published a comprehensive guide to the IndieWeb.
Coming from a design background, joining the IndieWeb was an incredibly exciting and rewarding, yet maze-like journey. To be honest, almost every step of the way was like a leap! But I’ve learnt so much and got a lot of feedback throughout this process from the passionate and friendly community.
RELATED CONTENT
blogs, IndieWeb, social media, trends
Blog of the .Day, bringing back the blogosphere one blog at a time
22 May 2024
Blog of the .Day, yes, styled as Blog of the .Day, a collaboration between James Gallagher of James’ Coffee Blog, and Joe Crawford, will highlight a new blog every day.
Aside from casting the spotlight daily on a blog, another goal of the project is to bring the term blogosphere back into popular usage. For those coming in late, the blogosphere — that great interconnectedness of blogs — preceded the Twitterverse, and now looks to have outlived it as well.
Long live the blogosphere.
RELATED CONTENT
blogs, IndieWeb, social media, trends, Twitter
The health benefits of giving up drinking coffee
21 May 2024
As with many things we consume, the science on coffee can be conflicted. One decade caffeine consumption is a no-no, the next it seems coffee is quite beneficial. Regular readers will know I’m a coffee drinker, but in — what I consider to be — moderation: two (large serve) cups per day.
But some people struggle with coffee addiction. And the same people say their general health, and mental well-being, much improved when they stopped drinking coffee all together. Jesse Downes, based on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, says he used to drink seven cups of coffee a day, before giving up completely about three months ago:
Three months into his coffee-free life, Mr Downes is noticing some changes. “The anxiety levels generally seem to be more managed, or reduced, if you like, and I would have to say there’s a sustained energy level,” he said.
Good for him. Just because many people enjoy something, doesn’t mean everyone will. I guess we all have our no-no vices. Mine would be alcohol and soft drink, both of which I only partake of a couple of times a year.
RELATED CONTENT
What has happened to cover versions of popular songs?
20 May 2024
Every week, Australian radio station Triple J, invites a band or musician to record a cover of a song, for their Like A Version show. Anything goes here. About two years ago, Sydney based Australian DJ Dave Winnel performed a cover of Africa, by Toto, not the sort of music you’d usually hear on the jays.
While Like A Version recordings are archived on the Triple J website, I’m not sure many are released as singles, where they may, or may not, chart. The idea here is to have a bit of fun.
Cover songs, where one musician records a usually popular song by another recording artist, are an integral part of music history. Many well-known acts launched their careers by recording a cover of someone else’s song. The Rolling Stones first single, for example, from 1963, was a cover of Come On, by Chuck Berry.
But today though, covers are a lost art. Or, covers of popular songs, at least, according to this chart, compiled by American musician and writer, Chris Dalla Riva. The image makes for grim viewing for fans of cover songs. In the last fifteen to twenty years, barely any cover songs — of the popular variety, that is — have made it onto the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
Surely this is not the end of the road for covers? Read more about Dalla Riva’s findings here.
RELATED CONTENT
RSS is really simple, why do so many find it complicated?
17 May 2024
Chris, writing at uncountable thoughts:
RSS is a pervasive, but little known, web technology that allows you aggregate all your content into one place for easy reading. There are very few websites without an RSS feed, although many don’t advertise the link (or, even realise they have it).
When you put an RSS feed link into your RSS, it is called “subscribing”. But don’t worry — it’s totally free, and you don’t give your email address.
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is really simple. But a lot of people don’t see it that way, and anyone who has ever syndicated their web content, has always struggled to convince their readers of that. Like, probably since RSS arrived in March 1999. Yet RSS almost had its moment, during the so-called golden age of blogging, circa 2003 to 2010.
Writers took to writing blogs, and readers took to reading blogs. Content Management Systems like WordPress churned out RSS feeds automatically. All a blogger had do was prominently post a link to their RSS feed. Really simple. Writing posts explaining what RSS was, and why it was useful, was also common. Erstwhile (by the looks of it) Australian blogger Meg Tsiamis, of (defunct) Top 100 Australian Blogs Index fame, wrote a post in 2007, outlining RSS to her mother, and other of her readers.
Sadly, the more in-depth resource she linked to, is no longer online. In other words though, we’ve been trying for years, decades, to impress upon others the simplicity and function of RSS, but too little, or no, avail. Unfortunately RSS plain simply baffled just about anyone, and everyone, who didn’t write a blog. RSS was too technical, too geeky, many people complained.
But popular perceptions of RSS were only one problem. Accessing RSS easily was another. Some argued Google closing down their popular RSS reader, er, Google Reader (which I never used), in 2013, sounded the death knell of RSS. But the real problem had always been one of uptake, or rather, lack of uptake. Geekiness aside, some people questioned the purpose of RSS in the first place.
I recall, in 2014, trying to explain the utility of RSS to a co-member of a small business coffee meeting group I was then part of. I pulled out my laptop at the cafe we gathered at one morning, and showed him my RSS reader of the time (NewsGator, I think). “Look, see, you only have to visit one website to read one hundred websites,” I said, as I scrolled through my subscription list.
He marvelled as he looked on, recognising a number of websites he visited regularly. “All you need do is get a RSS reader app, like the one we’re looking at now, subscribe to the RSS feeds you like, and you’re set,” I said. Despite my small presentation though, he still looked confused. He didn’t seem to understand why you’d stop visiting a website, to read its content elsewhere.
Oh, the frustration.
Today RSS is even simpler. No apps are needed, one only has to create an account through a RSS aggregator website, Feedly for example (free for a basic account), and start subscribing. You don’t even need to know the URL of a website’s RSS feed. Type in the regular URL, and Feedly will search for available feeds.
Subscribing to an RSS feed is really the same as following someone on Instagram (IG). And it’s just as simple. Choose an IG page you want to follow, and tap the follow button. With RSS though, instead of following, you’re subscribing, although some RSS aggregators call the process following.
Better still, and as is often reported elsewhere, your subscription is anonymous (you could follow my RSS feed, and I’d have no idea unless you told me), and you only see the content you want to. There are no algorithms, or annoying “suggested for you” content. How good is that?
Well, not good enough, perhaps. Until subscribing to a RSS feed literally becomes as easy as following someone on social media, selling RSS as a really simple way of following a website, will, unfortunately, remain a hard sell.
RELATED CONTENT
blogs, RSS, technology, trends
2024 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) winners
16 May 2024
The 2024 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) were held last week, on Thursday 9 May. The ABIAs are considered the Australian book publishing industry’s night of nights. A book-ish version of the Oscars, if you will.
Award winners include Pip Williams, with her novel The Bookbinder of Jericho, in the General Fiction Book of the Year category. I’ve read the predecessor title, The Dictionary of Lost Words, a story with the publishing of the first edition of the Oxford Dictionary, as a backdrop.
Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life, by Anna Funder, won Biography Book of the Year, while Welcome to Sex, written by Melissa Kang and Yumi Stynes, which garnered some controversy last year, took out Book of the Year for Older Children (ages 13+).
The full list of winners can be seen here.
RELATED CONTENT