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Frederick I. Ordway III has passed away. My condolences to his family and friends. I met him a few times, and was always impressed with his efforts to share his considerable knowledge.

He was a prolific author of books and articles on spaceflight and its history. Among his articles, my favorite is "2001: A Space Odyssey in Retrospect," p. 47-105 in the 1982 book Science Fiction and Space Futures, edited by Eugene M. Emme. This is a memoir of his work on the epic movie, chiefly concerned with wrangling its science and technology.

As I have previously written:

[Arthur] Clarke urged Kubrick to hire Ordway and his artist pal Harry Lange, and soon they were moving to England.

Ordway served as jack-of-all-space on the research and design of all the sets, models, etc. "I wasn't an expert on hibernation, but I knew who was. I wasn't an expert on food in space, but I knew people who were." He traveled around to various companies and universities, and got expert advice about future possibilities in the technologies the film would portray. [...]

"Everything had to work. We didn't know where Stanley would point his camera. It could be anywhere on the set." For this reason, every button and display in the spacecraft has a plausible function, every bump and knob on the spacesuits has a reason for its appearance.

One can hear Fred Ordway speak in a number of clips on Youtube.

"Science on Screen" talk following a showing of 2001 at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville, Tennessee in March 2014.

From SpacePod, a 2010 three-part interview about The Rocket Team, Ordway's influential book with Mitchell Sharpe. It's about the German engineers who developed the V-2 missile during World War II, and went on to build ballistic missiles for the U.S. Army and Saturn Vs for NASA:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Ordway on the history of the National Space Society. He was a charter member of its ancestor, the National Space Institute, and served on NSS's Board of Governors.

I regret to say that we won't be attending Loncon 3. We have two memberships for sale at $192 each.

They include voting rights for the Hugo Awards and 2016 Worldcon site selection. The right to download the Hugo Voter Packet is also included.

The 73rd World Science Fiction Convention is LonCon 3, in London, England, 14-18 August 2014.

If you know anyone who might desire a membership, please pass this along.

To contact me by e-mail: higgins at fnal dot gov.

I remember studies by Valdis Krebs a few years back on what we can learn from Amazon's "customers-who-bought-this-also-bought" network of political books. I wonder if this network would be any less polarized, or any less depressing to contemplate, in 2014.

For some reason I recently looked up Hillary Clinton's new book, Hard Choices, on Amazon.com..

The 1024 Customer Reviews have a distinctly bimodal distribution:
245 5-star
29 4-star
26 3-star
35 2-star
689 1-star

Every one of the Most Helpful Customer reviews displayed on the main page (for the Kindle edition) is a one-star review, e.g., "Excruciatingly Boring, Overly Long, Insipid Pabulum." (sic)

I read a few, and realized that they'd been penned by reviewers who were politically opposed to Hillary Clinton. So I looked at some of the five-star reviews.

"Yes, the finest fantasy literature in the 21st century." "George R. R. Martin, move over. . . there is a new Mistress of truly Epic Fantasy."

Oh.

I'd never thought much about this: Amazon's customer reviews are a political battleground. Meta-arguments about reviewing are also erupting there.

Also, the work of those determined to signal, by means of one-star reviews, that this is a horrible book is being undermined by those of their fellow Clinton-bashers who are playing the 5-Star Fantasy Novel joke.

Maybe I'll read some of the 2-star, 3-star, and 4-star reviews to find out how good the book is.

I am with Chris Olsen, his daughters, and

jonsinger.

Chris is making daguerreotype portraits of Jon. This requires a blazing array of lights, including multiple banks of bright blue LEDs. There are, of course, several steps of treatment with wet chemicals. It is helpful to have the assistance of daughters.

These pictures look very nice.

Daguerreotypes. In 2014.

These are the kinds of people I run around with.

I am a lucky guy.

An idle thought came to me today. I wondered whether anybody on Twitter had used "octothorpe" as a hashtag.

The answer is yes.

Not particularly interesting, but it teaches us that the world abounds with wiseacres like me.

In his long, weary journey to Minneapolis,

jonsinger paused here at the Nuclear Arms to rest. His car pulled up at the curb, and began to disgorge instrument after instrument.

I have played each of the Fakeleles he brought along. Jon is teaching himself how to play a uke.

Todd Johnson showed him Fermilab, and he was able to commune with fellow tinkerers.

We bid him farewell this morning. My phone tells me he made it to the other end.

Fortune cookies may be interesting at China House in Warrenville, but the soy sauce packets are even more interesting.

Sometimes I eat there. Sometimes I obtain food "to go." In the latter case, China House tucks little packets of mustard and soy sauce into my bag.

When I remove them, I can read the fun facts printed on the packets. I may learn that New Orleans has hosted the Superbowl nine times, or that the Yangtzee River is the third-longest river in the world, at 3800 miles.

Such trivia, however, did not prepare me for this:
( More amazing facts lie behind the cut )

China House is my favorite Chinese restaurant. It's not far from the gates of Fermilab, in the stretch of Route 59 that I think of as "Warrenville's Chinatown" because there is another Chinese restaurant across the street.

The other day, this message appeared in my fortune cookie:

You are about to become $8.95 poorer. ($6.95 if you had the buffet.)

I thought you might like to see this.

The crowdfunded engineers seeking to revive the ancient ISEE-3 interplanetary spacecraft have succeeded in making two-way contact. Jason Davis tells the story.

Rather than the kiss of a handsome prince, the spacecraft was awakened by a Software-Defined Radio (27 MB PDF).

My pal Dennis Wingo is on the team. They're hoping they can command the spacecraft to change its orbit before its upcoming lunar flyby. But the clock is ticking. I wish them luck.

This coming weekend, I'll be involved in a number of program items for Duckon 23, a science fiction convention held in the Westin North Shore Hotel in Wheeling, Illinois. They're also planning for a Zeusaphone performance by the Masters of Lightning at sundown on Friday (if it rains, Saturday).

The theme this year is "What If?"-- but isn't that the implicit theme of every SF and fantasy convention, ever?

Saturday, 7 June

2:00-2:55 P.M. Ravinia A
The Science of Hal Clement’s Iceworld--Special Science Presentation

The late Hal Clement, who often attended DucKon, was celebrated for weaving stories out of scientific fact. In his novel Iceworld, characters who breathe hot gaseous sulfur confront the mysteries of Earth, to them an unbelievably frigid planet. Among other things, the legendary master of “putting the science in SF” foresaw robotic interplanetary exploration in a unique way. And the new science of exoplanets sheds light. Join Bill Higgins in exploring the chemistry, physics and astronomy behind the classic story.

4:00-4:55 P.M. Con Suite
Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream Party

Join Bill Higgins and friends as he and his helpers make fantastic, tasty ice cream the DucKon way!

[Another source says this happens at 5 PM. I don't know which to believe. Check when you get to the con. I also don't know who the friends are. I trust the concom will be coming up with suitable utensils and ingredients.]

9:00-9:55 P.M. Ravinia E
Hey, Hollywood, You Ruined My Book

Have you ever loved a book so much that you just couldn’t wait for the movie? And then when it finally came out, it left a lot to be desired. Come and share your tales of dismay and horror at what Hollywood did to your favorite book.
(Rebecca L. Frencl, David Gerrold, Bill Higgins, Jeffrey Liss, Virginia Massetti (M))

10:00-10:55 P.M. Ravinia A
Are We Ready For The What If?

What do we do when the future comes and we are not ready for it? How do we prepare ourselves for the future advances and reactions?
(John Higgins, Bill Higgins)
[Yes, there is a local fan named John Higgins. No relation so far as I know.]

Sunday, 8 June

12:00-12:55 P.M. Ravinia E
Evolution of Battlefield Weapons

From swords to laser pointed guns, many of us are fascinated by the variety of weapons developed in history to the present. What are the next models of military or home defense? Will the manufacturers go to phasers some day?
(Walt Boyes, Lee Darrow (M), Chris Gerrib, Roland J. Green, Bill Higgins)

The third annual John M. Higgins Award for Best In-Depth/Enterprise Reporting has just been awarded to Frank Greve, for Combat Journalism: Is Reporting on Global Conflict Worth the Risk? ," from CQ Researcher. (CQ Researcherdocuments are normally behind a paywall, but this story has been made available free for a limited time.)

Each year, Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications announces the Mirror Awards, which honor excellence in reporting on what they call "the media industry" (which I think of as "The Press," more or less). Among these is an award named for my late brother, a gruff but lovable journalist.

Other nominees for the Higgins Award were:

Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey, "Manti Te'o's Dead Girlfriend, The Most Heartbreaking And Inspirational Story Of The College Football Season, Is A Hoax," Deadspin.

Ryan Burns, "Ferndale Gothic," The North Coast Journal.

Congratulations to Mr. Greve and to the other Mirror Awards winners and nominees.

A video is available of Frank Greve's talk on "Rising Risks of Covering Conflict" at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting last year.

Here's today's announcement of all the Mirror Awards winners . And from back in April, here's a list of the finalists. The Mirror Awards hashtag: #Mirrors14.

Our family is grateful to Discovery Communications and Time Warner Cable for their gift establishing the Higgins Award, and to the Newhouse School for their continuing efforts in organizing this celebration of excellent journalism about journalism.

My beloved wife is interested in nutrition. Nathan S. Bryan, Ph.D., knows this, so sometimes one of his brochures turns up in our mailbox. Here's yesterday's science-based natural breakthrough.

This is my new favorite phrase. I am sitting in my cubicle. Every now and then, I say aloud, "UNLEASHES the FULL REJUVENATING POWER of BEETS!"* My colleagues are getting used to it.

Bonus points to the layout artist for slightly enlarging the font, as the phrase swells majestically, while switching to beet-colored letters.

The rest of the copy on the page is quite, if I may use the expression, purple-- Mike Vincent suggested that the copywriter's true calling might lie in comic books-- but "unleashing the full rejuvenating power of beets" is truly magnificent. What spinnitch is to Popeye, the beet is to Dr. Bryan.

I've had a soft spot for beets ever since they were involved in one of my best jokes.

The brochure is surprisingly thick. Page 16 will tell you more about the tart, raspberry-like flavor of Dr. Bryan's beverage. In case you'd feared it would taste like beets.

*Exclamation point in original.

For some years Walgreens has been peddling nuts in little packages for 99 cents. I keep a few of them in the car for moments when a small dose of food is desirable.

My favorite among these products has been shell-free salted pistachios. You can buy a 1.5 ounce bag for 99 cents, which works out to $10.56 per pound, or 25.32 Canadian dollars per kilogram. They are very, very tasty.

Yesterday I stopped to pick up a few more bags. To my dismay, the nut display contained not only 1.5 ounce bags of pistachios, but also 1.0 ounce bags. Apparently they're making the transition to much smaller bags. And to a price of $15.84 per pound (C$37.99/kg or 131.70 Pounds Sterling per stone). I will now have to pay Walgreens 50% more money to obtain a given weight of pistachios.

I am sad. Well, it was a nice bargain while it lasted. Guess I should stop into every Walgreens I pass, buy up the remaining pistachios, and freeze them. Don't have much spare cash at the moment, though.

Or find cheaper bulk pistachios, if I can, and decant them into small bags.

What's the best price I can get on shell-free salted pistachios?

A couple of weeks ago, Professor Farah Mendlesohn, Head of Department in the Department of English, Communication, Film and Media at Angela Ruskin University, spoke at the Royal Society in London. You may know her as the author and editor of many scholarly books on science fiction and fantasy, or as an organizer working on science fiction conventions in the UK and sometimes North America, or from her Livejournal writings.

The august Royal Society has a series of Friday afternoon lectures on the history of science. They're among my favorite podcasts. (A few Itunes versions here. Huge collection of MP3 downloads here.) I started out by picking the ones closest to my own interests, but eventually I listened to nearly every available talk, because you never know what obscure topic might turn out to be fascinating.

So I was pleased to learn that the 4 May talk was to be given by someone I knew:

The Royal Society and Science Fiction

The lone (mad) scientist is a common trope in science fiction, but hidden away is a fascination with secret and semi-secret societies who work for the future of all mankind. This talk will look at the representation of the Royal Society in science fiction and fantasy as fact, fantasy and metaphor.

A video has just been posted, incorporating the soundtrack of Farah's talk along with images of her slides. Watch it here. (Such talks usually turn up audio-only on Itunes, but this one hasn't appeared there yet.)

Special bonus: Eleven minutes in, image of a SMOFcon T-shirt featuring a member of the Royal Society.

One of many things I wish I could have asked Bill Patterson, now sadly and suddenly deceased, is how to punctuate the title of his new book.

In 2010, as you may know, Tor Books published the first volume of Bill's biography of Robert Heinlein, Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: Volume 1 (1907-1948): Learning Curve. As I understand it, Bill fought hard for "In Dialogue with His Century," a subtitle he intended to cover both volumes, and Tor acceeded to his wishes.

Heinlein in 1976. Photo: David Dyer-Bennet, dd_b

The second and final volume will emerge on 3 June. Many reviewers have already received "advanced reading copies," and many retailers are geared up to sell the book. So it is mentioned on many places on the Web.

Trouble is, they can't agree on exactly what the title should be, nor how to punctuate it.

Publishers Weekly:

Robert A. Heinlein in Dialogue with His Century, Vol. 2: 1948–1988, The Man Who Learned Better

Google Books:

Robert A. Heinlein, Vol 2: In Dialogue with His Century Volume 2: The Man Who Learned Better

Barnes & Noble:

Robert A. Heinlein, Vol 2: In Dialogue with His Century Volume 2: The Man Who Learned Better

An ARC is up for auction at the Con or Bust charity. Photo of Tor Advanced Reading Copy (spread out among five separate lines, with not a colon in sight):

Robert A. Heinlein
In Dialogue with His Century
Volume 2
1948-1988
The Man Who Learned Better

Kate Nepveu transcribes this as:

Robert A. Heinlein – In Dialogue with his Century: Vol. 2, 1948-1988: The Man Who Learned Better

Michael Swanwick's description of the ARC:

Robert A. Heinlein In Dialogue With His Century: Volume 2, 1948-1988: The Man Who Learned Better

Deb Houdek Rule at the Heinlein Prize site:

Robert A. Heinlein, In Dialogue with His Century: Volume 2, 1948-1988: The Man Who Learned Better

Amazon.com:

Robert A. Heinlein, Vol 2: In Dialogue with His Century Volume 2: The Man Who Learned Better

(At least none of these aspire to the triply-becoloned status of Amazon's title for Volume 1.)

So how should I refer to this book?* As I said, I wish I could ask the author.

Perhaps if this matter can be sorted out, I too will become The Man Who Learned Better.

*Returning the courtesy, because this book refers to me, just as Volume 1 did. On page 495, I'm cited as a source for a tiny, tiny piece of information about Robert Cornog's security-clearance troubles. Glad I could contribute a small brick to Bill Patterson's cathedral.

Last Friday was a bad day for ocean science. From National Geographic:
Deep-Sea Vehicle Nereus Lost 6 Miles Down

At the Kermadec Trench north of New Zealand, researchers lost contact with the robot submersible when a catastrophic implosion apparently destroyed it. Eventually debris floating to the surface was identified as part of Nereus .

It doesn't seem all that long since the Autonomous Benthic Explorer was lost on 5 March 2010.

Here's a statement by Ken Kostel of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Here's the homepage of Nereus, a "hybrid remotely operated vehicle" which could run autonomously or under remote control.

The community of builders and users of Nereus have my heartfelt sympathy.

All I want to say is that I didn't touch anything. Honest. Not anything important, anyway.

Long ago, in recounting his own genesis as a science fiction fan, Patrick Nielsen Hayden wrote:

In 1971, I actually managed to find a Phoenix chapter of the Tolkien Society, and attended one of their meetings, where, being twelve, I was mostly ignored by all, save for a large fellow named Bill Patterson who talked to me almost as if I were human.

Bill had no way of knowing that kid would one day publish fanzines.

Bill had no way of knowing that kid would one day be a Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund winner.

Bill had no way of knowing that kid would go on to win the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor, Long Form. Multiple times.

But Bill Patterson was a gentleman. Instinctively, he treated a twelve-year-old stranger with respect.

And for all the decades afterwards, Patrick remembered that.

William H.Patterson, Jr. passed away last week. I will miss him. Nobody alive knew more about Robert Heinlein. He was a kind man.

I valued Bill's friendship-- though we didn't know one another well-- and was grateful for the warm encouragement he gave to my own research. In addition, he was always generous in sharing his hard-earned knowledge.

Before I met him, he'd already co-authored The Martian Named Smith: Critical Perspectives on Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land with Andrew Thornton. In 2010, Bill published Volume 1 of his much-anticipated biography of Heinlein, Learning Curve.

Here's more about Bill.

Here's an obituary at Tor.com.

If you'd like to see Bill in action, here's video and audio of a talk about Heinlein he gave at the Cato Institute in 2010.

Adding to the sadness is the realization that Bill died just before his new book was to be published. Robert A. Heinlein, Vol 2: In Dialogue with His Century Volume 2: The Man Who Learned Better, known to some as ISBN 978-0765319616, can be ordered from Amazon, to be published on 3 June. I want to read it.

Bill Patterson labored long and hard to make good books.

Illinois is not always kind to visitors from California. This van, once owned by physicist Richard Feynman, just arrived at Fermilab.

Decorated with Feynman diagrams, California Historical Vehicle 664T stolidly endures an inch of mid-April snow.

I see the silvery trailer, part of the sculpture "Airstream Interplanetary Explorer," is in front of The Highrise right now, and a crew is maneuvering it into place to prepare for the 10-week exhibition of Edward Tufte's metal sculpture here at Fermilab's art gallery. All part of what my colleague Mike Vincent has called a Triple Nerd Alert.

Preparing "Airstream Interplanetary Explorer" outside Wilson Hall.

What the AIE looks like when it's at home, at Hogpen Hill Farm in Connecticut.
In honor of Prof. Tufte, the celebrated champion of data visualization, and his excellent books on the subject, allow me to resurrect a moment from this blog.

In 2007, we were discussing Worldcon professional Guests of Honor, their ages, and the duration of their science fiction/fantasy careers at the time of the Worldcons where they were honored. Some were saying that the latest guest seemed rather young, or rather less experienced, than they expected a World Science Fiction Convention GoH to be. Turns out that this guest was not very unusual, compared to the set of previous honorees. I published some graphs to visualize the data.

Birth year of Worldcon Guests of Honor vs. year of the Worldcon

Number of years eleapsed between a Worldcon Guest of Honor's first science fiction sale and the year of the Worldcon, versus year of the Worldcon, for professional guests where I have been able to ascertain their first-sale year

Age at first sale of Worldcon Guests of Honor vs. year of the Worldcon, for professional GoHs

Over in the UK, Del Cotter, bless him, considered the principles of presenting numerical data in a clear fashion, and set out to improve upon my graphs.

Del wrote: "Thanks for gathering the data on this. I took the liberty of ripping it out and making my own graph, from which it seems clear to me that in age or career he's not even a freak for the modern Worldcon era, just a little unusual. " Indeed, his graph was nicer.

Age and career length of Worldcon professional Guests of Honor

My reply:

( (Behind a cut... )

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Eponymously Yours, W. Skeffington Higgins

Recent Entries

Frederick I. Ordway III (1927 - 2014) on Video

For Sale: Two Worldcon Memberships

Reviewing Hillary

Blogging (As WHL Says) from an Undisclosed Location

When Strikes the Octothorpe!

Jon Singer Sighted

Message from China House 2: I Didn't Know That

Message from China House 1: A More or Less True Fortune Cookie

ISEE-3 Has Phoned Home!

My Schedule for Duckon 23

2014 Higgins Award Goes to Frank Greve

Skyrocketing Energy! Clearer Thinking!

Aw, Nuts!

Farah Mendlesohn on the Royal Society, at the Royal Society

Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man with Two Colons

Sad News from the Pacific

About Bill Patterson (1951-2014): Part 2

About Bill Patterson (1951-2014): Part 1

While Feynman Sleeps

Livejournal Memories: Del Cotter's Carpet