Sunday Things - launch site edition

posted in Links by Cargo Cult on Sunday June 23 2013

Unidentified launch site #1 Unidentified launch site #2 Unidentified launch site #3 Unidentified launch site #4

Sunday Things - reading list edition

posted in Links by Cargo Cult on Sunday June 16 2013

Enough pictures and videos. Have some readings to read instead!

Bonus This Time It's A Video corner:

In Soviet Russia, clouds upload you! ... wait, that's Texas.

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A supercell near Booker, Texas - clouds doing distinctly ominous things.

Iain (M.) Banks - 1954-2013

posted in Obituaries by Cargo Cult on Monday June 10 2013

My heroes are dying. I knew it was coming, but now it's Iain Banks' turn.

At least I had the chance to thank him first.

I've never been able to look at furniture in the same way since.

I think my first exposure to his writing must have been a brief snippet of the Wasp Factory, late at night on Radio 4. It involved an open brain and maggots. It was very late at night.

While at university, following various upcoming computer games, someone online mentioned that the writing for the forthcoming 'Halo' kind of resembled that from a certain 'Iain M. Banks'. Ooh, I thought, let's investigate. A trip to the nearby Blackwell's resulted in a paperback copy of Consider Phlebas - which turned out to be much superior to the unreleased digital alternatives. I commenced the reading of everything else Banksian I could lay my hands on.

I was having a pretty difficult time at university - the escapism, pitch-black humour and leftist sensibilities helped me rebuild some semblance of a functioning mind. The full spectrum of conscious thought - from the breathtakingly ugly to the brilliantly sublime seemed contained within those books.

The novels stayed as an irregular rhythm to my life, an intermittent backdrop as I started to write fiction as part of another unconventional medium - being ever-so-slightly inspired by that Mr. I. Banks, with or without the 'M.'. Additional evidence - the username I go by on many online systems. It's not just a comment on other modders' game development practices...

Eventually, I inadvertently ended up with another job as a result of those spare-time efforts. And, shipped over to the USA, I’d quietly suggest the books of this almost-unheard-of ‘Iain M. Banks’ to friends and colleagues, quietly proud as his name spread through the efforts of publishing companies and others.

The older covers for Banks books in the USA are awful. Yes, I went to an American bookshop on my first trip to the USA - where I did manage to find numerous absent-from-UK-bookshops titles from Stanisław Lem, who'd had the temerity to die just days beforehand.

I never had the chance to meet him. And now I never will. I raise a (sadly American-sized, albeit with a Black Mesa logo) pint in his honour.

Sunday Things - quick edition

posted in Links by Cargo Cult on Sunday June 9 2013

Couple of links. You get the idea!

Ariane 5 rocket-o-matic

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On-rocket video of ATV-4 launch - 20-tonne European monster carrying supplies to the International Space Station, launched atop an Ariane 5 rocket. Extra: Dix - neuf - huit - sept - six - cinq - quatre - trois - deux - un - I didn't realise they did the countdowns in French!
We get signal! ... Main screen turn off. :-(
20 Seconds on Mars - discussion of the 20-second signal from the ill-fated Soviet Mars 3 probe, the first to land (semi-successfully) on Mars.
THIS PLACE IS NOT A PLACE OF HONOUR - NO HIGHLY ESTEEMED DEED IS COMMEMORATED HERE - NOTHING VALUED IS HERE.
Secret Shots of Hitler's Bunker - taken in 1987 in East Berlin, shortly before the final annihilation of Hitler's last hiding place. Had it not been possible to destroy the place, could marking it like this have been an option?

Bonus More Programming Revealed by Radio-4-Matic corner:

  • Wireless Nights - Jarvis Cocker's explorations of the night, with musings on the National Grid, organ donors, disconnected islands and so much more. Perfect for listening to late at night. Sadly not followed directly by Sailing By...

Sunday Things - anniversary and disk crash edition

posted in Links by Cargo Cult on Sunday June 2 2013

Good news! This blog has been going for an entire year, and I haven't missed a single Sunday Things.

Bad news! My laptop's hard disk has just died, taking with it numerous bookmarks I'd been collating for this week's edition. I've got full backups of everything up to about a week ago; email and suchlike is unaffected. But still, there's the annoyance factor. Curse you, Seagate! The disk's just over a month old, too...

So instead, have a somewhat curtailed, text-only antiquated British technology edition:

Bonus Sunday Things anniversary corner:

Please feel free to post prior (and new) interesting things in the comments. I'll be busy attacking my laptop with a screwdriver.