Ukraine Soldiers Explain Counteroffensive Combat

A good narrative summary of the horribleness in the Ukraine.

Most Critics Suck

Welcome to my blog, and sorry for click-bait title. Today I am going to talk about critics, and why they mostly suck. Except for the few like Patrick (H) Willems who is also film maker.

I am Ashley Pollard, and Patrick's critiques are the reason why I'm writing this piece.

Critics talk about the why's, who's, how's, when's and where's of a story they're critiquing.

Patrick's piece on Jack Snyder is especially illuminating, and since I'm now going to criticize Patrick by saying his observations about translating Alan Moore's Watchmen into a film are off base. I will add, in case any of Patrick's fan are enraged at me criticizing his take on Snyder's Watchman movie, he's right about the dichotomy.

For me, he misses a salient point; the medium is the message.

Hollywood films are their own thing, and Zack Snyder is Hollywood (that's a metaphor for the slow of thinking). If you agree that the medium is the message then the use of the comic strip medium to tell a story, and Snyder's film translation of the story are going to be at odds with each other.

It's an inevitable outcome.

A critique is a message about how another's message has been perceived by the consumer of the message, and how and what they think of the message. That's my tongue in cheek critique of critics criticizing works.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-critics per se, just the way the art of criticizing works leads to circling the drain of content. Even the best critics can produce critiques that suck.

I had so much fun writing this. Just saying so you know.

UAP Aerogel Drones

Came across this video on YouTube researching science and technology called, Aerogel - The Secret Link. The title is all click-baity, but I checked it out, and apart from a few over-excited extrapolations I think they're basically right.

I've known about aerogel for a while. It's a proposed material for deep space particle protection along with Whipple Shields. I'm a science nerd, bite me.

Anyway, I followed the links: Light-induced levitation of ultralight carbon aerogels via temperature control, Layered shell vacuum balloons, which are just ways of making a vacuum airship/balloon, that uses the fact that a vacuum is lighter than air instead of a lighter-than-air gas.

Below is a screen capture from the second link.

The problem up to now is how to make a balloon that is light, yet strong enough to resist being crushed by the air pressure?

My position on the whole UFO/UAP hysteria is that these are secret projects. YMMV

Are We Losing The Essence Of Science Fiction?

Sci-Fi Odyssey on YouTube asks Are We Losing The Essence Of Science Fiction? The answer is probably no, but I'm sharing to discuss.

A Rod Sterling quote sums up my position, "It is said that science fiction and fantasy are two different thing. Science fiction is the the improbable made possible, and fantasy is the the impossible made probable." 

So a lot of SF/Sci-Fi/speculative fiction meets that criteria. What we are then left with is taste.

My SF is better than your SF because mine has maths/literary merit/deals with serious issues etc. And here is where Sturgeon's Law comes into play, 90% of everything is trash. 

My perspective is that human beings are not capable of being rational about subjects (see Professor Sapolsky's lectures for the gribbly detail). To simplify, the ideal may be infinite diversity in infinite combination, but humans can't handle an infinite number of diverse combinations.

My conclusion led me to write my own SF books, and I can say that what I like to write is not necessarily what people like to read.

Fermi Paradox Discussed by Brian Cox

Brian Cox shares the most popular theories of why haven’t we found aliens? Sharing because it allows me to expand some salient points that are not mentioned, but need to be stated for clarity.

Assumptions

1. The speed of light sets the maximum rate any species can expand, and this, along with the inverse square law, would limit detection too.

2. The average distance between stars is approximately 6 light years. 

3. Space is very big. The volume of the milky way is approximately 785,398,163,397,448 light-years. That's 785 trillion light years.

So if you divide the average distance between stars into the volume, then we get 130 trillion years of travel time. Now that sets the maximum time it would take to visit every star, and of course we, or a hypothetical alien species, wouldn't  need to visit every star.

I've discussed this on my other blog where I bloviated on Aliens in BattleTech, and four years ago on this blog about the Fermi Paradox. If you click the latter, I gave a ball park figure of 31 billion years to colonize the galaxy at slower than light speed.

Obviously, the assumptions will generate a different range of guesses, but that's the best we can do.

Clash of Steel Anthology

A hundred tons of steel and more firepower than the devil himself… they should be invincible, but armored combat is brutal and mistakes are fatal.

Within, mech jockeys and tread heads take on the world one powerful blast at a time, risking it all for duty, fame, and glory.

But deep down, they fear a savage contradiction:

Armor can be your salvation.

It can also be your worst nightmare.

Which will hold true? Climb into the commander’s hatch and find out. Buy a copy of this amazing anthology today. You deserve answers!

Amazon US

Amazon UK

I'm honoured to be in this anthology, along with some rather famous writers. My contribution is an 8000 word short story set in my Gate Walker universe called, Indian Summer Rain.

PteroDynamics X-P4 Transwing®

 

They call this a sizzle video.

For those wondering what I'm doing, a few of you do ask what I'm writing, I've been editing other people's work... mostly.

Mostly being broken on occasion by editing my Cosmic horror novel.

Slow and steady will get me to my goal.