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November 25, 2012| cometary| 0 Comment | 2:00 am

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Poetry

I draw for you the art of Leonardo:

A man whose legs are feathered airfoils

of that smooth asymmetric camber

which folds the wind under an eagle’s wings.

A man poised in a cage of struts and sailcloth,

curved like the feathers on the haft of an arrow,

an apparatus geared to spin, to lift him free.

The paintings were for money.

This poem first appeared in Hadrosaur Tales #19, 2004. You can still find copies of the original Hadrosaur Tales online at clarkesworldbooks. Meanwhile, Hadrosaur Productions now publishes a new magazine, Tales of the Talisman, as well as novels, short fiction collections, and audio recordings. Look them up at www.hadrosaur.com

Walking to Pluto: Step 2Walking to Pluto: Step 2

Step 2: The List of Requirements:

Don’t worry. This is one of the least expensive major science projects you’ll put together.

You’ll need:

I found a sunny yellow ball for my Sun.

1) Any ball roughly 8” (19mm) in diameter—a basic playground ball is likely to work, as will a standard soccer ball. FIFA size 5 works for the English-units model; the SI model is slightly smaller, so a youth-sized FIFA size 4 is appropriate—but don’t get bogged down in the details. Visually, when compared with the planet models, all of these ball sizes look the same. It’s most likely that you already own or can borrow a ball for this project; if you simply must buy a ball, you should be able to find one for under $10.

2) A set of eleven objects to represent each of the eight planets, our Moon, and two of the dwarf planets:

Mars or Venus

Pluto or Ceres

a) four pins (two pin heads represent Mars and Venus, two pin points represent Ceres and Pluto),

The Moon Is Made Of Green Candy

b) one tiny candy nonpareil (cake décor or “sprinkle”) for the Moon

Earth Gets Spicy

c) two peppercorns or allspice seeds for Earth and Venus

Having a Ball with Jupiter

d) one jacks-size ball (Jupiter)

This jellybean could be Uranus or Neptune

e) two jelly beans (or coffee beans) for Neptune and Uranus

Saturn represented by a large swirly peppermint

f) and a ¾” (19mm) “shooter” marble or a big round piece of candy (also 3/4″ or 19mm) for Saturn. (It’s just so nice to have something extra-cool and colorful for our most spectacular planet.)

Total cost: less than a dollar US; ideally, rummaging about an average home or allowing participants to bring contributions should turn up most of these objects for free. To splurge, pick up a whole jar of fresh peppercorns for around $5 and share them out among the students.

2) Eleven inexpensive holders for your objects, with the object names written on them. Empty clear yogurt containers or plastic drink cups work very well (see photos), as the pins can be pushed through the cups and others attached with glue to the cup bottoms…such that the cups then serve as mini-pedestals for the model objects. However, don’t feel bound by guidelines here—a set of index cards will do the job if that’s what you have handy. It does help to secure each object to its support. However, be sure that students can see the actual object clearly so that everyone has a feel for the scale. Cost: as much as 10 cents

3) A few signs printed on regular-sized paper to leave with objects that will be waiting for your return, such as: “Please Leave This Experiment Undisturbed — (Teacher’s Name).” Cost: 10 cents

4) Weights to keep each sign from blowing away in a breeze—anything from a handy rock to a water bottle to an actual sports-field marker from your supply closet. Cost: negligible

5) Your basic first-aid kit and/or other equipment required by local protocols for a field trip.

6) Water as needed (Up to $10 if you need to buy each student some bottled water; negligible if students can bring refillable water bottles.) You may choose to make the walk as short as a half-mile (kilometer) or as long as twice that. For a short walk, you should only need modest supplies; for a long walk, snacks and water will be welcome.

7) A printout of your “Cheat Sheet” for either the English-units or SI-units version of the project Walk to Pluto, Miles or Walk to Pluto, km (Just click to download the desired document) Whichever measurement system you’re using, it’s just one sheet, front & back, and includes short comments you can make as you take your trek. Cost: 15 cents, if your printer ink is expensive, because it does have colors.

Total cost of essential supplies: normally about a dollar, assuming most items can be gathered at home or borrowed. For bottled water, if needed, budget an additional 50 cents per student

If you purchase all new supplies, you could spend as much as $40 for a brand-new soccer ball, a jar of nonpareils, a jar of peppercorns, a packet of pins, a jacks game, a bag of marbles with a shooter, and a package of jellybeans.

Interested in more details about the project calculations? Here are copies of the complete worksheets: Walk to Pluto Databank, miles and Walk to Pluto Databank, km

(For workbook copies in Excel format, ready for editing, I can send you a copy via Facebook messaging. Just connect to one of my pages, Pixel Gravity or Cometary Tales. Say, while you’re there, “like” the page. Either way, you’ll receive the file in a return message. The beauty of this approach is that you don’t even need a copy of Excel to use the workbook—Facebook will prompt you to choose whether to open it in Office Online or to download it. The alternative is to email me via cometary@cometarytales.com.)

A screen grab from a twitter posting: text is within blog post.

For my New Year’s Day new learning, I worked out how to create a thread (properly) in Twitter, in order to post my very first awards eligibility thread.

I know, I know, none of these are going to win any awards, though one has already been nominated (by the editor of the anthology) for a majorly major award. Nominations count; just being nominated is a huge, huge thrill.

But not everyone likes to hang out on social media. Facebook is broken. Twitter has deep wells of toxicity, Instagram is all about being pretty (and owned by Facebook), and Tik-Tok is … out of my league.

So in this blog post, I’ll try to recreate the Twitter post. I have two 2021 stories that are Hugos-eligible (the science-fiction ones). What awards do you know about that you’re eligible to nominate for? You might be surprised!

Let’s jump ahead now, and make this Not About Me. It’s readers who nominate for Hugos, and readers don’t care if the author is famous, made a bucket of money, or only managed to sell one story. Sure, the list of finalists is short, but consider–what did you read last year? What moved you? If you’re a 2021 or 2022 WorldCon member, you can nominate the things you liked. You can nominate up to five things in EVERY category. They don’t have to be the movies, stories, novels, or magazines that your friends liked, that your social-media leaders went on and on about. You can voice your own preferences.

So, pitch made. GO forth, write reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, nominate all your favorites for awards, and then enjoy all the new (and not-so-new) stories out there in 2022.

Here, then, is my Twitter thread. Do ya love or hate my cartoony profile pic? I’ll only put it in for the opening tweet; otherwise, it gets annoying in blog format.

The official awards-eligibility thread. In 2021, I had three short stories published:

1. a #scifi story about stolen land

2. a light #scifi #romance featuring a favorite 20th-century artist

3. an upbeat piece of literary fiction grown from #autism, #depression, and #optimism.

2/7 “Heart’s Delight,” anthologized in Fault Zone: Reverse, edited by @LaurelAnneHill and published by Sand Hill Review Press. An intelligent ecosystem repels those whose ancestors took the land unjustly, returning custody to its true caretakers. #SFF

3/7 For the record, I live on Tamien Nation Territory, bordering Popeloutchum (Amah Mutsun) land, connected to the territory of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area. These people are all, right now, working to protect this land, e.g.: http://amahmutsun.org/history

4/7 “Parrish Blue,” published by Water Dragon Publishing (Dragon Gems short fiction). In an elite restaurant on a climate-ravaged Earth, under the glow of a recreated artwork, a young woman rediscovers a dream of life immersed in wonder—and finds one who shares that dream. #SFF

5/7 I’m dropping in an image of the piece of art these two fall in love under (Romance, by Maxfield Parrish). Just because.

A fairy-tale castle stands on a hill, with peaks risin gin the distance, and people in old-time fantasy clothes gazing on the scene from a collonade — (Note: on Twitter, alt-text includes artist attribution: this is a photograph of a public-domain artwork. The photograph came from Plum Leaves at Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/eoskins/5841870848).

6/7 “Reunion,” anthologized in Fault Zone: Reverse, edited by @LaurelAnneHill and published by Sand Hill Review Press. Two young people, separated in childhood by separate traumatic events, renew a friendship forged through shared suffering.

8/7 These are all findable via my linktree.

Glowy orange sunset clouds float over a cluster of treetops at lower left. With text linktr.ee @Vanessa_MacLarenWray | Linktree. Character-drive literary speculative fiction. Science-y stuff. Cats. Ponies.

7/7 If this story resonates for you, consider further research at https://autisticadvocacy.org or connect with mental-health resources in your community. Also, remember to reconnect with friends in 2022.

It’s surprising hard to recreate a Twitter posting in a blog! Go follow me on Twitter, OK?

Walking to Pluto, Step 4Walking to Pluto, Step 4

Step 4: Go Farther

Pluto & Charon in Full Color (Image Credit: NASA)

New Horizons has flown past Pluto successfully, and is now on the way to check out other Kuiper Belt objects. Here’s Corwin Wray’s simulation (made with Pixel Gravity, his software for doing multi-body models on your laptop), which concludes with a wistful look back at our Solar System:

Like New Horizons, you can explore further too.

It’s worth your while to start by tracking down Guy Ottewell. Yes, he’s on the web, folks, and you can connect with him! Start with his Home Page, which includes all of his books, including the latest version of the book form of his Thousand-Yard Model as well as innovative ideas in several fields, from voting systems to landscape design: He has a Facebook Page on which he’s been more active as of 2014, sharing art and world news: And he joined Twitter in 2013 and tweets regularly, especially on human-rights topics, which should interest anyone who’s become aware of just how small our human community is in this huge universe: find him as simply @GuyOttewell on the tweet machine. A few of his books are available at Amazon, but take care—the latest updates are best obtained by purchasing directly from the author.

Of course, you might want to follow some of informational links given in the workbook pdf’s for this project:

For more information on both the inner and outer planets: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/charchart.cfm

For more information on the asteroid belt: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Asteroids&Display=OverviewLong

For more on Kuiper-belt objects and Pluto: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=KBOs and also http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Dwarf

And of course we have an active mission beyond Pluto right now. It’s an APL project, so they have a great page on the program: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

Read about the Pioneers’ adventures here http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/2013/pioneer11-40-years.html#.UzDJ44WwX_0 and here http://www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/Pioneer_10_40th_Anniversary.html#.UzDKb4WwX_0

Discover more about the Voyager missions at: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/where/index.html

And find out where all the system-leaving spacecraft—as well as Earth-orbiting satellites, the planets, and other system objects–are right now: http://www.heavens-above.com/SolarEscape.aspx?lat=0&lng=0&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=UCT

For more on the Oort cloud, see http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=KBOs

Lots of other interesting links:

The National Optical Astronomy Observatory presents Guy Ottewell’s original project description from 1989 online:

A wonderful collection of poems and quotes related to astronomy, gathered by Michele Stark, an astronomer with a wonderful page she created while lecturing in physics at the University of Michigan, Flint. l You’ll also find astronomy labs she’s created for non-majors interested in the field, under “Outreach and Education”

A relatively exhaustive listing of scale models in place around the world—most are designed for point-to-point driving or cycling tours, so scroll to the bottom portion of the list for walkable models, several of which are roughly on the same scale as that presented here. Check before you set out—some of these installations were only temporary, as part of larger events and some are virtual (i.e., online). I would like to imagine astronomy fans travelling to all of them, as baseball fans travel to all the major-league parks.

The National Center for Earth and Space Science’s “Voyage” program has a “somewhat” pricier scale model in Washington D.C. but also offers up lots of useful curriculum materials: http://voyagesolarsystem.org/ Their program is fee-based, not by any means free, but it is very comprehensive and aims to involve parents, teachers, students, and their communities: http://journeythroughtheuniverse.org/home/home_default.html

You can keep track of the Voyager spacecraft in real time at http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/where/index.html They’re in rapid motion—Voyager 1 is travelling at over 38 thousand miles per hour (over 17 km per second).

All about the sun (with a wonderful NASA graphic of a solar flare compared with the Earth): http://www.universetoday.com/94252/characteristics-of-the-sun/

A summary page on the Peppercorn Model at SpyHill Research, which also includes some links to interesting places: http://www.spy-hill.net/myers/peppercorn/

Why isn’t an AU exactly the same as Earth’s orbit any more? Sorry academics, the best answer is in Wikiland: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_unit

More about our Moon: http://www.universetoday.com/19677/diameter-of-the-moon/ By the way, Universe Today is a good site to follow!

Asteroid information for Wiki fans: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_belt

The Project Astro Notebook used to be sold as a huge expensive bulky (and still wonderful) binder. Soon, you’ll be able download at least some portions in pdf format from the free government-sponsored education resources site eric.gov. However, for now your best bet is to buy the DVD’s at http://astrosociety.org/astroshop/index.php?p=product&id=577&parent=1

While you are waiting for your DVD to arrive, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific has a page full of resources for you, including a few of the Project Astro activities. http://www.astrosociety.org/education/astronomy-resource-guides/

If you actually need to shop for marbles, by all means the best place for working on this project would be “Moon Marbles”, at http://www.moonmarble.com/c-78-shooters-approx-19mm-or-34.aspx

Astronomer Phil Plait summarizes the latest estimates on stars with planets beyond our own system: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/11/04/earth_like_exoplanets_planets_like_ours_may_be_very_common.html

Why use a FIFA 4 or 5 ball? Well, the dimensions are good for it. But any similar-sized ball will do for this project…like the tennis-ball-patterned playground ball I have. Guy Ottewell likes to use a bowling ball—but notes that it’s kind of heavy to lug around. http://www.achallenge.com/t-faq.aspx

A seemingly unrelated topic—watching for the bright flare of reflected sunlight from certain Earth-orbiting satellites: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/washtech/features/iridiumqa.htm The interviewer on that page is talking to Chris Peat, whose website contains a wealth of information on satellites, the solar system, and the positions of the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft. http://www.heavens-above.com/?lat=0&lng=0&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=UCT

Just to show how established walkable solar system models have become, here’s a typical promotion for a talk by Eric Myers of SUNY (see the GoogleMaps list below) and another talk summary that may inspire you to think about other ways of building a model https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/event-view.cfm?Event_ID=44693 and http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&ved=0CGcQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fregionalaaptmeeting2013.weebly.com%2Fuploads%2F2%2F2%2F9%2F3%2F22939768%2Faapt_meeting.docx&ei=jaU5U5rvCqiIyAGK0YHwBw&usg=AFQjCNHl4_6jyF2UU_JJ7H9SrD6suXOhjA&sig2=MBKeDxFBGjHlVB2rk8n3wA&bvm=bv.63808443,d.aWc

A few places (courtesy of SpyHill Research’s page) where you can use GoogleMaps to follow a model:

> SUNY College at New Paltz, New York: Map, KML

> Dutchess County Rail Trail, Morgan Lake, Poughkeepsie, New York: Map, KML

> Riverfront City Park, Salem, Oregon: Map, KML

> Walkway over the Hudson, between Poughkeepsie and Highland, NY: Map, KML

> Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY: Map

For an insanely delicious solar-system project for any mad bakers in your circle, visit Rhiannon’s recipe on her cakecrumbs blog: http://cakecrumbs.me/2013/08/01/spherical-concentric-layer-cake-tutorial/ with some extra photos and video on waitwow http://www.waitwow.com/make-scientifically-accurate-cake-planets/

If you need more reassurance that science and math are not only fun but also funny, visit http://www.xkcd.com (but do prescreen before sharing with students—this webcomic does sometimes use “PG-13” language.

If you have already memorized all of Gary Larson’s Far Side comics, visit the science cartoon webring at http://jcdverha.home.xs4all.nl/scihum/webring.html

And of course, don’t forget to visit Science Cartoons Plus (http://www.sciencecartoonsplus.com/pages/gallery.php)

Materials shopping tips:

Pins with small round heads—look for beading pins—however, be aware that beading pins aren’t sharp, so pick up some ordinary pins as well. http://smile.amazon.com/Beadaholique-20-Piece-Ball-21-Gauge-1-5-Inch/dp/B00BBAXXYS/ref=sr_1_1?s=arts-crafts&ie=UTF8&qid=1396515591&sr=1-1&keywords=pins+2mm+head For pin tips, any small sewing pin with a nice sharp tip will do. (Note that beading pins are not that sharp.)

For the jacks ball, you can pick up a jacks set anywhere. Online (e.g., www.orientaltrading.com , they’re often sold in party packs of a dozen sets. But any bouncy ball bigger than ¾” and no bigger than 1” in diameter will do the trick.

If you decide to buy a playground ball or soccer ball online, locate an air pump before your shipment arrives—they’re often shipped uninflated.

And if you buy on Amazon, be sure to sign up for smile.amazon.com first, so your purchases can support your favorite charity.

Machine Design

You might also like to read:

Walking to Pluto: Step 2Walking to Pluto: Step 2

Learning to ThreadLearning to Thread

Walking to Pluto, Step 4Walking to Pluto, Step 4