How About This: things of interest - May 12, 2022
In which the author shares things he found cool or interesting
Like any good student of the world it behooves me to share some things of interest to me (hopefully to you). Here are a few things I’ve captured from Twitter and other sources for your consideration (somewhat slanted to the geekier side of things):
The first picture of the black hole at the center of our galaxy - from Scientific American, the story about Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole that makes up most of the mass of our galaxy. It’s not the first black hole that’s been photographed using lots of telescope and computer power but it’s a big one.
Zettlekasten - warning, this is extremely nerdy and not easiest stuff to follow, but this is a technique used to collect and organize information using a kind of cataloging system (very simplified explanation). I’m just starting to get my head around it and I really want to use this because I feel like I’m drowning in information. I take tons of notes about everything and I have to wonder how much it really makes sense to do this. I think it is useful but I want to do it better. A saner approach might be to read How To Take Smart Notes, which I just bought and am starting to read. I’ll have lots to say about this in the future.
Gasoline prices: are poised to exceed $2.00/L in my part of Canada (New Brunswick). Not a fan of this. I believe it’s worse in other parts of Canada. In Europe, of course, they are used to paying significantly more than us in North America, can’t imagine what it’s like now.
Elon Musk apparently wants to allow Donald Trump to rejoin Twitter - I can’t say I’m in favor of this. Musk’s likely purchase of Twitter is one of the reasons that I started this newsletter but I’ll talk more about that another time.
Space:1999 Audiobooks by Big Finish - if you are a fan of the 1970s SF series Space: 1999 you might want to check out the relatively new series of Big Finish Audiobooks. They’ve been adapting some of the first season episode like Breakaway, Death’s Other Dominion and now Earthbound, as well as creating some original material. The adaptations make some different creative choices with characters and plot than the original series but I think many fans will enjoy them well enough.
Comic book artists George Perez and Neal Adams have recently passed away. Both are famous for comic books runs in the 70s and 80s across a wide range of DC Comics properties. Perez is a particular favorite dating back to his time illustrating The New Teen Titans and subsequent series in the early 1980s, not to mention Crisis on Infinite Earths, which is its own tale. RIP guys. Was also sad to hear of the death of Scott McCloud’s wife in an auto accident.
Ncuti Gatwa is Doctor Who’s new Doctor, taking over from Jodie Whittaker, the first female actor cast as the Doctor. Gatwa is the first male of colour to be cast as the protagonist of Doctor Who. Former Doctor Who show runner Russell T. Davies is back in charge - he restarted the venerable British TV series to much acclaim and success from 2005 - 2010.
Star Trek: Picard finished its second season last week with some lovely emotional beats to close out a mixed-bag season; I have a feeling it might look better when rewatched but we’ll see. There will be at least one more season before Patrick Stewart straightens the uniform one last time and puts away the Earl Grey tea for good.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds debuted last week as well, a spin-off from Star Trek: Discovery. ST:SNW continues the stories of Captain Pike and his USS Enterprise crew, with Pike being the predecessor to James T. Kirk of Star Trek’s original TV series. A younger Mr. Spock is one of the main characters of ST:SNW and apparently a Lieutenant Kirk is joining the crew (but I won’t reveal further details). So far this series is the closest structurally and tonally to the original Star Trek TV series and so far, so good.
That was more than I expected to share but this is always an experiment, so there you go. Feel free to share with me any interesting info that you might have!
Very intrigued by the note taking stuff (well and the other stuff, but I intend to look into the note stuff now too)