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and the study desk had 3d virtual reality and a voice writer. lets see waterbed(1), spacesuit(2), mobile phone(3)...makes me wonder how many other things he designed :).
Rex
(1)stranger in a strange land
(2) have spacesuit will travel
(3) space cadet
 
I picked up Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett, It's ok so far. It feels like his early discworld novels though and is definatly not on par with Gaurds! Gaurds! or Thud.
 
Finished "Children of the Fleet" which was good, then read through a biography of Curtis LeMay. The LeMay book was a very good read. Being a Star Trek DS9 fan just started reading "A Stitch in Time" which centers around the character Garak. What is interesting is that the actor who played the character on DS9 is the author of the book.
 
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Re-reading "Chariots for Apollo - The Untold Story Behind the Race to The Moon" (1985).

Review: https://www.cnn.com/books/reviews/9911/26/chariots/index.html

...... In "Chariots for Apollo," authors Charles R. Pellegrino and Joshua Stoff tell the history of the space race from a different perspective. They don't offer a biography of the scientists who dreamed up the machines that carried men to the moon, or the life stories of the men who flew them. Theirs is the story of the machines themselves. In particular, they offer a biography of the Lunar Module, the spindly, spider-like lander that was the last link in the technological chain that allowed the United States to beat the Soviet Union to the moon.

The story of the LM is told by the men and women who built it. They were the designers, engineers and technicians who conceived the unlikely spacecraft and turned it into reality........
 
I'm giving up for now on reading "The Dark Forrest" - book two in the "Three Body Problem" trilogy (the story is just too hard to follow, and the large size of the book is hard to read with my bad eyes). But since I started reading it, I've read "Hardcore Twenty-Four" by Janet Evanovich, the "Well World" saga by Jack Chalker, "Hex" by Allen Steele, "Dime Store Magic" by Kelly Armstrong, "The Big U" by Neal Stephenson, and several others (putting away about 100-200 pages or so a day). I'm going away for Thanksgiving, so I'm looking for stuff to take on the trip. Fortunately, there's a Half-Price Books not too far from my brother's house (or maybe this is a bad thing - I can really hurt my wallet in there).

My brother will also have accumulated a bunch of new audio books. He likes action/thriller/spy kind of stuff. I listen to audio books from time to time, but I've got to be completely alone with no distractions or interruptions, and that seems to be rare nowdays.
 
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Picked up these at an Opportunity Shop (Charity Shop) a few years back. Some moon precursor information, a series of articles on Apollo 8 and another on Apollo 11. I was going to wait for the 50th year anniversary but started them early.

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We really have not done a huge amount in the intervening years :(.
 
hmm, wouldn't it make sense to put the swimming baths on the upper floors of the habitats to act as radiation shielding?
Rex
 
Re-reading Elizabeth Moon's "Trading in Danger" series. She has a way of describing spaceship battles that make them seem real.
I have read a lot of her stuff, the "Deed of Paksenarrion" is a series that rivals "The Lord of the Rings" IMHO.
 
Re-reading Elizabeth Moon's "Trading in Danger" series. She has a way of describing spaceship battles that make them seem real.
I have read a lot of her stuff, the "Deed of Paksenarrion" is a series that rivals "The Lord of the Rings" IMHO.
I can smell the burning metal in David Drake's tank battles.
 
hmm, wouldn't it make sense to put the swimming baths on the upper floors of the habitats to act as radiation shielding?
Rex

<smile>
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I've gotten to the Missouri Compromise. I have to say, I was really sorry to see the end of Ben Franklin. Things seem to have gone sharply downhill after his death.

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I'm in the middle of one that a lot of folks here will probably love......

"How to Invent Everything - A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler" by Ryan North. Brilliant, funny, and actually very informative. The premise is this is a manual that is included when you rent a time machine, and you use it in case the time machine breaks stranding you somewhere in time before civilization has begun. With it you have all the necessary info to rebuild civilization from scratch. It guides you through everything thing inventing language, math, science, etc., on to agriculture, nutrition, medicine, then to technology, and engineering, to religion, philosophy, art, music, etc.

This allows you to bypass thousands of years at a time that it originally took us to figure some things out. Way fun, and pretty dang cool. Check it out, I bet some of you are going to love it.

s6

I'm only 5 chapters in and I'm really enjoying this.

It's amazing how long humans went without basic things we take for granted. I Ioved the explanation that farming also created rich/poor and the need for other tech like storage, infrastructure, medicine, weapons, etc.

Thanks for the recommendation.
 
Greg Bear: just finished War Dogs, in the middle of Killing Titan.
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Just about done with the final book of the trilogy: Take Back the Sky.


Also, I have been listening to an audiobook of a book that I had read earlier, cool thing is that is is read by Wil Wheaton, aka Wesley Crusher from Star Trek TNG, he does a really good job. By the author of Ready Player One, this one is called Armada, plenty of 1980's gaming and sci-fi references, etc. I use my library acct to check out audio books using their free app.

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Just finished reading these two.

Einstein was a good read, and with nearly 600 pages you get a good idea of his life from birth, up through his early years, his science (including his struggle to get a professorship, even after his "special relativity" was published) and thoughts on all manner of subjects, especially world politics. There is extensive information on his two marriages and his children, including one with mental health issues. One of the main things obvious in his life is his innate drive to do things differently to be creative, and retaliation from authority of all sorts. Stories include lots of interactions with some of the best that science and the world had to offer. I liked it.

The other book I purchased as I have always had a like of particle physics, from since I was about 10 years old. There have been a lot of discoveries in the intervening four decades so I thought an update might help. Fairly well written, and by using old-style maps of the world the existing Standard Model is described. I found this OK, but for me there are likely better books out there. For others, this would be great.
 
Them. A great read by Senator Ben Sasse about polarizarion in the USA (applies to Norrh America I'd say). Lots of lessons from a young but wise senator.
 
I am currently immersed in fun stuff like textbooks, journals, Government regulations and private organizational guidelines.
 
Re-reading (round 4?) Engines of creation The coming era of nanotechnology by K. Eric Drexler. Very insightful and relevant considering it was first published in 1986.
 
Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West

If you're a fan of the movie "Tombstone" and/or "Wyatt Earp" it's a great read. Tom Clancy leaves out the folklore and presents factual information.

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Just finished "Variable Star" by none other than Robert Heinlein! It came out eighteen years after he died; even death couldn't stop the master!

Actually they found a long outline of the story, and some note cards, but he never wrote it. Spider Robinson got the job, and it really does sound a lot like Heinlein. Lots more cusswords than RAH ever used, though.

Best -- Terry
 
Currently reading the complete works of Sherlock Holmes - both the books and the short stories. Very entertaining.

Also had forgotten that Mr. Holmes was addicted to cocaine (and did heroine as well) and Dr. Watson was constantly encouraging him to quit.
 
Forgot about this:

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_save_you_this_time

Derek Lowe is a chemist who writes a column called "Things I won't work with." Even if you're not a chemist you'll enjoy his prose. The URL above describes chlorine trifluoride, once considered as a liquid oxidizer for rockets. His best post IMHO is https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeli...3/things_i_wont_work_with_dioxygen_difluoride (Formula is, fittingly enough, FOOF ;))

Best -- Terry
Whenever people express concern about my hobby activities, I let them know none of it's high explosive, teratogenic, cryogenic, hypergolic, etc. Then I describe Stuff That Burns Sand and remind them most of my stuff is safer than the 36gal of gasoline in my truck.
 
I finished the first two Star Wars Thrawn books, so my 10yo had someone to talk about them with (because he really wanted to talk about them)...easy audiobook commuting material.

About half way through "Rosewater" by Tade Thompson. I'm currently undecided on it, but it has potential. I suspect it is one of those book that when finished I'll still wonder if I liked or not.
 
Whenever people express concern about my hobby activities, I let them know none of it's high explosive, teratogenic, cryogenic, hypergolic, etc. Then I describe Stuff That Burns Sand and remind them most of my stuff is safer than the 36gal of gasoline in my truck.

I'm a fan of In The Pipeline as well. I tell people that rocketry is all low explosives, so it's OK.
 
In the Pipeline is one of my favorites too, but I'm a Medicinal Chemist. Glad to know it has a following outside the profession as it is a pretty even handed look at what drug R and D actually is.

Regarding his things I won't work with section. I've used a couple, and won't be doing so again..."Not even with your hands" is what I told my boss when he asked me to try the reaction again.
 
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I am currently immersed in fun stuff like textbooks, journals, Government regulations and private organizational guidelines.

Yeah. Apparently, I am writing a textbook. Right now my office looks like like the returns desk at the physics department library. "I know I saw a good figure for the optical path of a monochromator in the lower left corner of a left-hand page of some textbook with a green or grey cover that I last opened 25 years ago..."

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Also, I am revising my mechanics lectures -- so I pulled out a couple of the Doubleday Science Service/Science Program books to see what physics looked like in the 1960s (back when it was generally understood that you needed to know some math to do science and engineering).

I am putting Three Body Problem aside. I am about 100 pages in, and I have just lost interest. It was hard going from the start, since the events described affected my family and people I know. After that preamble, which was effectively written -- if wrenching -- the narrative seems to become stilted and forced. I may pick it up again later, but not for a while.
 
I have to say that that is the first time I have seen a kinematic mount on the cover of a book! We are currently designing a monochromator for a product.

Interestingly, I was just last weekend installing some electrics in my Jeep and the engineers had used the kinematic mount system on some of the body panels. Clever.
 
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