Life Imitates Art Imitating Life

This is nuts. On Thursday, an MBTA Red Line train in Boston took off without its driver (who had stepped out of the cab to throw a switch under the car). The train ran through three stations inbound from Braintree, with no one at the controls, until dispatchers cut the power to the third rail and brought it to a coasting stop.

Reports emerging from the investigation indicate that the driver had not properly set the brakes before exiting the car, and further had tied off the “dead man” lever that controls the train’s movements. (This has not yet been officially confirmed, so we’re going here by reports from The Boston Globe.)

This could be a remarkable instance of life imitating art, said art having already imitated life.

In the 2010 movie Unstoppable, a runaway freight train endangers an entire city, due to its load of toxic chemicals and the sharp curve it is thundering toward. Only the heroic actions of engineer Denzel Washington and conductor Chris Pine save the day. The cause of the runaway: a dunderhead engineer* getting out of his locomotive to throw a switch without properly setting the brakes, and (I forget exactly how) leaving the controls in such a position that they start the train rolling under power.

That movie, in turn, was inspired by a real-life incident in which a freight train in Ohio, carrying dangerous cargo, rumbled along without anyone in the cab for 66 miles before finally being brought under control in much the same way as in Unstoppable.

It would be very hard to make this stuff up and have anyone believe you.

*In the film, the engineer was clearly a dunderhead. I'm not suggesting that the driver of the T train was. That's for the investigation to decide.

Capt. Kirk Commands Cutting Edge Vessel!

Captain James Kirk left port today—for real—on the bridge of the brand-new U.S.S. Zumwalt, the first of a new class of starsh-... er... Navy destroyer. It’s true. Capt. James A. Kirk really is skipper of the Zumwalt, according to the Associate Press, which reported it without so much as a blink.

The Zumwalt, named after the admiral with the memorable eyebrows and serious credits as a reformer in the Navy, is a controversial, super-high-tech prototype of a new kind of destroyer, which has a hull design more suggestive of a vessel from the 1890s crossed with the Civil War era Merrimack. This design, with the bow extended forward and down to slice into the water, and a superstructure totally enclosed in a box, reportedly makes it more efficient in the water and stealthier when it comes to radar avoidance. It’s turbine-electric powered, and has the latest in long-range weaponry. It’s also hideously expensive, so much so that the Navy cut its initial order from 32 ships to 3. Proponents say it will serve as a valuable test platform for ships of the future. Skeptics call it a boondoggle. I call it a great reason for Capt. Kirk to get back into his game. (Even if this Capt. Kirk went to Annapolis rather than Star Fleet Academy.)

Time will bring us answers to those questions of usefulness, no doubt. But right now, what I want to know is, why didn’t Capt. Kirk’s parents have the foresight to give him Tiberius for a middle name?

I suppose they must have had their reasons. Meanwhile, congratulations on your new command, Cap'n Kirk!

P.S. You can read a pretty interesting interview with Capt. Kirk here.

Paris

So, having my big sale come out right after the horrific events in Paris feels crass, at best. (It was all set in motion, of course, long before those events.) I feel a bit weird about promoting books in the face of all that pain.

Truthfully, all I can think of to say about Paris is: People of Paris and France, my thoughts and prayers are with you. We’re all in this together, as you were with us after 9/11. 

Perhaps I’ll just point you to this piece, which offers some good thoughts about constructive ways not to respond to tragedies like this. Please read it.

And now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn’t feel too bad about offering redemptive entertainment in the face of real-life hatred.

Happy Birthday to All of Us—Play It, Sam!

No more do you have to pay a royalty to Warner Chappell Music if you want to use the “Happy Birthday” song in public, in a film, or in your dining room! For most of us, it’s been an interesting bit of trivia that the song “Happy Birthday to You” was under copyright. But for filmmakers and others, it’s been a significant expense. In fact, Warner Chappell Music has been making millions of dollars on it. Well, no more.

US district judge George H King, in Los Angeles, has ruled the copyright claim invalid. The history of the song rights is something of a convoluted story, which you can read about in the LA Times or The Guardian. The bottom line, according the court ruling, is that the 1935 copyright claim applied to a specific arrangement of the song, not the tune itself. And the lyrics apparently were never copyrighted. Warner Chappell Music may be facing significant claims for refunds of the millions they’ve charged over the years.

Play it again and again, Sam! Play it in public!

Volkswagen Cheats the World

Every time I think I’m beyond surprise at what complete jerks large corporations can be, something comes along like the latest from Volkswagen. In case you’ve been on a camping trip and haven’t heard the news, the CEO of Volkswagen has admitted that VW has for years been installing software on their diesel-powered cars designed specifically to cheat emissions testing. Customers who bought cars thinking they were buying the latest in safety for the environment and fuel efficiency were getting neither.

This short video from the Washington Post sums the whole thing up in stunning detail.

What I’m wondering is why the CEO of VW is still employed and, for that matter, hasn’t been arrested.

More here.

Update: The CEO of VW has resigned. Who knew I wielded such power? 

Commas Rule, This July Fourth!

Do commas matter? According to an Ohio Court of Appeals, they do.

As we U.S. Americans celebrate the birth of our democracy today, it’s fitting to celebrate recent court victories on behalf of the common man (and woman)—and common sense. I’m not talking about the Supreme Court ruling in support of same-sex marriage equality, though I celebrate that, as well. I’m talking about the Ohio 12th District Court of Appeals ruling which overturned a West Jefferson, Ohio woman’s ticket-and-tow citation when she left her pickup truck parked on the street overnight.

The reason her truck was towed? A village ordinance makes it illegal to park “any motor vehicle camper, trailer, farm implement and/or non-motorized vehicle” on a street for more than 24 hours.

The woman argued that her truck was not a “motor vehicle camper,” and should not have been towed. The trial court ruled that the ordinance meant to say, “motor vehicle, camper, trailer, etc.” and that the missing comma was just a typo.

No way, said the Court of Appeals. If your meaning requires a comma, you need to put the comma in. We’re not responsible for your careless writing. Yay! Let’s hear it for clear writing, I say!

You can read the whole story in the Washington Post, which seems to have rereported it from the Columbus Dispatch.

Now, if I could just collect a fine every time I caught the Boston Globe mangling grammar, spelling, or punctuation (as opposed to “grammar spelling, or punctuation”). It would probably cover the cost of my subscription.

A special tip of the hat today to copy editors everywhere!

 

Blue Angels Over My Town

And I missed it!

I’ve always wanted to see the Blue Angels, the U.S. Navy’s precision flying squadron. Yesterday I had my chance—except I didn’t know about it! I was in the shower when I heard a thunderous roar of aircraft flying nearby. It sounded right overhead, which is occasionally the case with traffic out of Boston’s Logan Airport. But this didn’t sound like commercial airliners; it had the distinctive crackle of jet fighters. I tried to look out the bathroom window, but saw nothing in the sky but clouds. The last time I’d heard that sound in real life, it was a pair of F-15s flying over Fenway Park.

An hour later, I read in the online edition of the Boston Globe that the Blue Angels (flying their gorgeous blue and yellow FA-18 Hornets) had been in town for a photo shoot, and had just made several passes above the city, including over Fenway Park. It’s entirely possible that they did fly over my house, while I was in the shower.

I was fit to be tied. But I thought, at least I should be able to see some good video footage of it, from the local TV stations. Forget it. As it turns out, about the only videos I’ve found online have been clips from private citizens, probably shot on their cell phones. Here’s a still, though, from the Boston Globe. It’s pretty cool: the six-plane squadron plus a photo plane, passing behind Boston's Prudential Center.

Nomorobo Beats “Rachel at Cardholder Services”

Rachel has such a bright, charming voice, and I’m sure she’s only trying to sell me something good. But I don’t know, because I’ve only ever hung up on her before she could finish her pitch. Like, about a thousand times. You may know her, too. Especially if you have a landline in the U.S.

Do you know about NOMOROBO? If you’re driven crazy by robot spam callers as I once was, go at once to nomorobo.com and sign up for the free call-blocking service. Nomorobo was the winner of a competition sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission to find a way to stop infuriating marketing calls—and it really works! It’s like an anti-virus program for your computer. It screens incoming calls, and if the numbers match profiles of known spammers, it rejects the calls after one ring.

Here’s the only catch: It works only on landlines that use Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP). But that’s most of the majors. I have Comcast, and I had no idea our phone calls went by VOIP. But they do. The sign-up is not quite as simple as they make it out to be, but neither is it as complicated as their instructions make it seem. It took me fifteen or twenty minutes to work through it. And once you’re registered, that’s it. You’re protected against most nuisance calls.

I had gotten to the point that when our landline rang, I often didn’t even bother to get up to see who it was; I just knew it was probably a spammer. Now, I listen—and if it rings once, then stops, I high-five the air. Because Nomorobo has just kicked a robot call back to the netherhells from whence it came.

Let’s hear it for the invention of the year!

Colbert Interviews Smaug

No sooner do I get that last post up than I see this, from last night on the Colbert Report. Stephen interviews Smaug the dragon:

The Colbert Report
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Jesus Is a Liberal Democrat

That’s the assertion of Stephen Colbert in this classic bit from 2010. I’m going to miss the Colbert Report when it goes off the air next week.

The Colbert Report
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The Boston Globe has compiled some of Colbert’s best moments.

And you don’t want to miss President Obama, taking Colbert’s seat and lampooning himself. Great stuff.  And good to see that he’s kept his sense of humor.

Launch of Orion

Yesterday’s unmanned test flight of NASA’s Orion deep-space craft is a great boost for those of us who want to see us back in the game of venturing beyond the Earth. We’ve had sensational successes in robotic missions; but not since the 1970s, with the end of the Apollo Moon program, has a human being flown beyond low-Earth orbit. It’s high time we got back out there, and got on with the challenge of making us a spacefaring, multi-world species. Here’s what the launch looked like:



Also of note is that the launch rode the fires of a Delta IV Heavy rocket, which actually uses advanced, American-made rocket engines. (Many of our crucial space launches nowadays ride on Russian-made engines—including military launches, which is really weird and unsettling, when you think about it. Nothing against the very smart Russian rocket designers, but given the political direction of Russia these days, I’m not happy being so dependent on them for access to space.)

I only wish we were giving this program the proper funding, so that the development of deep-space capability weren’t being stretched out over decades. The next launch of Orion isn’t scheduled until 2017.

Anyway, Go NASA!
 

Good News! Young People Read!

Some of us in the book biz worry too much. For a while now, there's been gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over the supposed graying of our audience—in particular, the perception that fewer young people are picking up science fiction books, and leaving it to the aging generation to appreciate the mind-blowing concepts spun out in our novels.

Actually, that could still be true. While SF is extremely popular in the media, and youths flock like bats to Comicon and the like, SF in book form doesn't seem to hold the market that it once did. (Always excepting outliers like The Hunger Games.) But—much as I hate to admit it—science fiction isn't the only kind of book that matters. So, with that in mind, take heart from this story in the Washington Post, regarding a recent study by the Pew Research people: "Millennials were more likely to have read a book last year than older Americans."

Let's repeat that, in case you missed it the first time: "Millennials were more likely to have read a book last year than older Americans."

Not only that, "62 percent of the under-30 set believes there's a lot of useful, important information that is not on the Internet." Which is 9% more than the number of older Americans who said that.

Go, Millennials!

Interesting Times? Holy Sh%$.

Bank robbers were shot by police today about 150 feet from where I'm sitting in our dining room.  My daughter Julia and I heard bang bang bang bang, and thought it was construction or firecrackers. I briefly thought gunshots, and then thought nah. Captain Jack knew it was worth barking about, but he settled down quickly. When I went out twenty minutes later to go to an appointment, police were stringing up crime scene tape, and just getting ready to tape off our driveway. I drove away knowing only that there'd been a shooting.

When I got home, I learned that it was not a domestic incident or random murder, but police responding to armed suspects. The whole place is closed off; I had to park a block away and walk home. The news helicopters are still circling around. Here's the story:

On Arlington Patch, and on Channel 5's website.

Here's what the scene looks like now.

While taking my own pictures, I got interviewed by both Channel 4 and Channel 5 news. They must really have been desperate for something to put on the air. (I doubt very much they'll use it, but you never know.)

I guess I can't complain about life being dull. This stuff is only supposed to happen on TV.

Give to Charity, Get a Story!

My colleague Laura Anne Gilman, a fellow member of Book View Café, has made an interesting offer: Give to a local food bank, send her a pic of proof, and she'll write a short story to put up for free on her website! If she gets enough, she'll write a novella. She can do it, too. (I would not make such a bold offer, myself.)

So, go ahead. You're probably going to give to charity anyway, this season. Why not encourage Laura Anne to write a story while you're at it?

Details here: http://www.lauraannegilman.net/this-thing-i-do/

Yay, Sox!

Congratulations, Red Sox, for a great World Series! Even this generally-doesn't-watch-baseball fan got pretty enthused about the series this year. We stumbled into the playoffs by accidentally tuning in about ten minutes before Ortiz hit his grand slam home run a couple of weeks ago. And from there on, we were all in. Way to go, Bosox!

I found myself wondering, though, why the two teams don't come together and shake hands at the end, the way sporting athletes used to do. For all of the excitement, I feel as if we've lost something in our obsession with the win. I think acknowledging each other as worthy opponents makes the sport larger, not smaller--and I wish we could have a movement back in that direction. Imagine a game like tonight's, but with both teams out on the field at the end: the losers congratulating the winners on their win, and the winners sharing just a bit of the spotlight to acknowledge that the other team put up a hell of a fight.

Well, why can't I do my bit right now? Cardinals, you put up a hell of a fight, you played some great baseball, and you managed to grow beards without looking like mountain men! Congratulations to you, too, on a great series.

What the hell, while we're at it--congratulations to the fans! And to the new owner* of the Boston Globe! Beers all around!

Boston Globe photo by Barry Chin

*John Henry, who also owns the Red Sox.

 

New Ebooks You Should Check Out — Victoria Merriman

Continuing my recent series...

My friend Victoria Merriman is an avid bicyclist. So much so that when her professional and romantic lives simultaneously imploded, a few years ago, she decided to bike across the United States, to get it out of her system -and, as they say, see the U.S.A. She blogged about it, and later decided to transform her blog recollections into a memoir. That memoir is now published, in ebook in the Kindle store, and in print in the Createspace store. It's called Finding Spoons: A Love Story on Two Wheels.

If you visit her website, you can read a sample chapter, and also about how through September, $5 from every sale is going to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

You can also get a little more back story on the blog of another friend, Erica Charis.

Get into the Group Photo: Wave to Saturn and the Cassini Spacecraft!

Friday the Nineteenth is the day the Cassini spacecraft, circling Saturn, will turn its cameras back toward Earth, and NASA and JPL want us to go outside and wave. What a photo op! If you're in America and standing outside at around 5:30 p.m. EDT, you'll be in the photo. Look to the east and wave to the open sky!

Here's the official word on the timing of the shot:
"The Cassini portrait session of Earth will last about 15 minutes from 2:27 to 2:42 p.m. PDT (21:27 to 21:42 UTC)." The Americas will be facing Saturn during that time. Other parts of the world, I'm sorry. Next time.

This is approximately what the view will look like from Cassini when it clicks the shutter. 

Boston Bombing Suspect in Custody

I was just sitting down to write an update—really to let everyone know that my own family is safe and well following the Boston Marathon bombing and the following manhunt, just a few miles from my house—when I saw on the TV, "Suspect in custody." Well done and thanks, Boston area police! What a tremendous, professional job. As I write this, we still don't know any of the details, just that they took the suspect alive, a nineteen-year-old kid who somehow got drawn into being part of this atrocity of terrorism and murder. And we still have the unanswered question: Were the two brothers acting alone? The story is far from over, but God willing, the day of fear has come to an end.

Shock and Grief at the Boston Marathon

I was miles from the finish line of the Boston Marathon when the bombs exploded yesterday. Busy with mundane tasks, I didn't hear much about what had happened until hours later, when I started getting text messages from out of state, people checking to see if my family and I were all right. (We are.) When I finally got caught up, I realized I was learning about something just a few miles away that was breaking news around the world. Unlike September 11, 2001, when I saw the TV images minutes after the attack, this came to me as a slow-building shock. I think it's still building.

Are my loved ones okay? Thankfully, yes. A number of people where Allysen works were running in the marathon. They're all okay. The soon-to-be-incoming pastor at our church was running. He's okay. The son and daughter of someone I know made a last-minute decision not to go see the finish of the race. To the best of my knowledge, no one I know personally, or even second-hand, was physically harmed in the attack.

Emotionally is another matter. People are sad and shaky and angry and depressed. Our hearts and prayers go out to the families whose lives are shattered. I find myself wondering what kind of vicious and demonized thinking can lead someone to murder and maim innocent strangers, and presumably rejoice in it. (Yes, I know, this sort of thing goes on every day, somewhere in the world. But this time it happened in my city.) I don't propose to answer the question, because I have no answers. It's been going on for thousands of years. But only in the recent past has it become so easy to commit acts like this with relative impunity.

I've never gotten personally involved in the running of the marathon, despite knowing some people who have participated. But to me, the marathon is like the Olympics: it's a place where people from all over the world come together to compete as friends and equals. It's a stage that brings out the best in us as people. A stage where money doesn't matter, nationality doesn't matter, religion and politics don't matter. It's a time for coming together, and celebrating the winners and almost-winners alike.

Was that why the marathon became a target? Because it celebrated the best? Because there are those who don't like celebration, don't like seeing people of all nations and colors running together? I don't suppose we'll ever know for sure. But I'm pretty sure of this: It wasn't an attack just on America; it was an attack on humanity.

Here's a photo posted to Facebook by Canadian astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield, from the International Space Station, titled A somber Spring night in Boston.

One online response to the photo was this: "Can you see our broken hearts from space?"

Another Loss: Film Critic Roger Ebert, at 70

I've never been a regular reader of the Chicago Sun-Times, but when it comes to checking reviews of movies I might be interested in (especially movies that show up on cable), the first reviewer I check is always Roger Ebert. I've trusted his reviewer's eye and sensibility ever since I first encountered him with Gene Siskel, on Sneak Previews, on PBS. He died yesterday at age 70, after a long struggle with cancer. The Sun-Times has a detailed obituary, and Blastr has one that focuses more on his interest in science fiction. He was a lifelong SF fan, as well as a  perceptive reviewer of movies of all genres.

Along with millions of other moviegoers, I'm sure, I mourn his passing. But I'm grateful for the legacy he's left us of intelligent, compassionate, critical thought about the movies. I'll keep checking for his reviews as long as they leave them up on the web.