Picofarad #1 contents | Next: Days of Yore
At least someone in the government is thinking of the future: the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in early July that a nuclear waste repository designed to last 10,000 years is insufficient, saying that the EPA's promise to develop guidelines consistent with National Academy of Science recommendations requires planning for at least 300,000 years. The EPA apparently did not protest the assumption that it would be around for the next 300,000 years to check up on it.
Ray Bradbury was a guest on the July 15th "Dennis Miller Live", where he elaborated on his side of the Fahrenheit 9/11 story: He'd tried to call Michael Moore six months ago, he said, and was told by Moore's people to expect a return call the next day. Moore finally called him two weeks before the show with an apology for not calling earlier, but no intention of changing the movie title.
As if the International Space Station wasn't having enough problems, the Russian space agency is now expecting NASA to pony up for the cost of the extra Soyuz missions needed in the shuttles' absence. Slight snag here: the National Defense Authorization Act for Financial Year 2000 tied cooperation in space to Russia ceasing to supply weapons technology to Iran, which it has been very firm about not doing recently.
James Doohan made his last appearance before withdrawing from the public eye due to Alzheimer's last weekend in Hollywood at a Star Trek cast reunion, which included his being awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He made no speech at the appearance.
Someone at BBC News Online has been reading Connie Willis on the job. On August 6th, an update on the Census of Marine Life explained, "The 10-year census, which began in 2000, aims to record all known marine life, in an aquatic 'Doomsday Book'."
That same day, the da Vinci Project announced on August 6th that, with the help of a new sponsor, their balloon-launched Wild Fire VI will make its first flight on October 2nd to qualify for the X-Prize. Unlike SpaceShipOne, Wild Fire has yet to even make a test flight. Appropriately, the sponsor is an Internet gambling site.
Mythopoeic Awards: Adult Literature - Sunshine by Robin McKinley; Children's - The Hollow Kingdom by Claire B. Dunkle; Inklings - Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth by John Garth; General Myth and Fantasy Studies - The Myth of the American Superhero by John Lawrence & Robert Jewett.