Science Fiction Miscellany

• Given the recent SFWA kerfluffle, here’s an interesting convergence: Jerry Pournelle waxes on the topic of ebooks, Scribd.com, and income, making some very good points. I don’t quite agree with his spin on Burt’s activities–I don’t think anyone could have gone through that list, read “gay erotica,” and thought they were defending Asimov’s copyright–but over all, he seems to make some good points. And then Cory Doctorow comes down with a pretty good defense of Creative Commons ebooks. The irony is, the two seem to be largely agreeing with one another.
• Stephen Hawking and his daughter Lucy are writing children’s science fiction, which I think is just damn cool. I’ve always thought kids need to be introduced to the wonder of it early on, and this looks like as good a thing as any for that. I’ll be picking this up for my young ‘uns, no question.
• Need another webcomic to read, you say? Okay, then try on JumpLeads for a bit. Timeslipping science fiction has never been so fun. I think, anyway. Pretty early in the run, but I like what I see so far. It’s paged, more like Dr. McNinja, though there’s not always a punchline or moment of suspense at the end of each page, like with the ninja MD.
• And oh yeah! Uh, WorldCon in Montreal in 2009. That’s so very cool, if only because it’s so very close. Chicago looks like they’re making another run at it for 2012, so that’s neat. Chicago was my first WorldCon, and it would be nice to be able to drive again. Montreal won’t be drivable, I don’t think, but it should be a pretty short and inexpensive flight. Or maybe a train ride. All depends, I suppose, on whether or not we’ll be taking kids with us. I still want to try to make Denver next year, but I think that will depend on how much extra income I can bring in between now and then.
• Ironically, as much as I write and think about science fiction, my current writing project is fantasy, and the next one is likely to be horror-themed, at least, in service to a contest. After that, who knows. I am kind of looking forward to getting back to spaceships and whatnot… but I’m three-quarters of the way through a year of palate-cleansing on SF, and so far, so good.

Can I Say I Saw This Coming?

I totally saw this coming.

Especially, as Penny Arcade once said of the Zune, 4:3 is the very ratio of obsolescence. So, if Apple really wanted to position the iPod as a video device, they would eventually have to go with a 16:9 screen, which the iPhone most certainly is. And so, it was only a matter of eliminating a couple of components to reboot the iPod line and bring true 16:9 video to it, without dramatically increasing the size.

Of course, it comes at some cost. For a device that looks to be about the size of my 30GB iPod Video, you get either 8 or 16GB, which means it’s likely all flash memory, which is good because the extra power draw of a traditional hard-drive would probably mean a very limited battery life for that big, bright screen. But I think, as awesome as the micro harddrives have been for the portable music market, flash seems to be quite obviously the future, especially as capacity increases and cost decreases.

As with my friend Steve Buchheit, I’m hoping that the device supports a decent RTF widget, making it a near-perfect portable device.

It’s funny that Apple has really come all the way back around to PDAs, via the portable music player. I had a Palm once, and I’ve had a succession of smartphones since taking on my current job… but this… mmmm. This is cool.

Please, Santa? Please may I have one, too?