I could not help it – this one is *really* ridiculous :
“Translation error”
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Author Archives: The Babylon Lurker
David Tennant leaves Doctor Who
I just got the news that David Tennant is leaving Doctor Who at the end of 2009, see the news from the BBC. Unfortunately, if you are outside the UK the interview cannot be seen from the BBC website. Possibly it is out there on U-Tube, but I have not investigated.
We will still see Tennant in the Christmas Special this year and in 4 specials in 2009. Interesting enough the title of the Christmas special will be “The Next Doctor”. Could this be an indication of things to come ?
2010 will see a new showrunner, Steven Moffatt, along with the 11th (or is it 12th after the “funny” regeneration last season?) Doctor.
It will be interesting to see who will be cast as the 11th Doctor. Your guess is as good as mine. The rumour mill has probably already started.
I will have to say that I really liked Tennant as The Doctor. This autumn/fall he has been playing Hamlet with Patrick Stewart in the UK. Stewart has said that he is interested in being in Doctor Who, it could be interesting to see him as a villain for a change. Could he become the 11th Doctor ? Possibly, but I doubt it. It could be interesting, though.
NaNoWriMo or NaBloPoMo ?
I know one or two people doing the NaNoWriMo ((inter)National Novel Writing Month), attempting to write a novel of 50,000 words in the 30 days of November.
Now, that is a too big mouthful for me. However I found some people doing NaBloPoMo ((inter)National Blog Posting Month), attempting to make one blog post per month in November. Now, for me that is something i might find doable. I looked and found that I could easily find 30 subjects for posting, so I will attempt to make, on average, one blog post per day in the month of November. I have not registered but will see how it goes this year.
So please expect a few posts from me in the month of November 😉 .
I know very well that December is a *very* busy month, so do not expect to make the trick in December.
Space tourist heard on Earth
This morning I heard Richard Garriot talking back to the Russian Ground station, in English.
I can now claim to have heard a space tourist talking back to Earth. He was using the standard frequency, 143.625 MHz, for communications between the International Space Station to the Russian ground station.
He was also active yesterday (I was at work so did not hear it) sending Slow Scan Television – still pictures – on the amateur radio frequency of 145.800 MHz. He was heard by several satellite listeners.
I will see if I can get more listening done today, there should be at least one more good pass of the ISS over here today.
If possible (connections) I wil make a recording.
It should be possible to hear the transmissions with a decent quality scanner receiver, so why not try for yourself ?
Heroes on BBC2
I found out a little late, not checking the TV listings for a while.
BBC2 shows Heroes on Wednesday nights, I did catch episode 3.3 Yesterday.
Maybe the BBC will make a marathon at a time I can watch , so I can catch the first two episodes of season 3.
More space comms
Today the Soyuz TMA 13 was launched from Baikonur. At the first two orbits signals were heard here in The Netherlands and in Germany on their downlink frequency 121.750 MHz. signals were quite strong for a while.
I did not understand much of it since the comms were in Russian. One word I did recognize the Russian word for “good” (or OK) was used frequently.
The communications can only be heard for about 5 minutes, because the spacecraft need to be “visible” for both my position and the ground station in Russia.
Nils in Germany made two mp3 recordings , with his permission I have uploaded them :
The Chinese Launch of Shenzhou 7 with a Crew of 3.
The Chinese space agency has launced their 3rd manned spacecraft with 3 astronauts (“Taikonauts”) on board. see the article from SPACE.com
The plan is to have a Space Walk of about 40 minutes in order to test a newly made Chinese space suit, collect some scientific experiments from the outside of the craft and launch a small satellite sending images back to Earth. The Space Walk should happen on Friday or Saturday.
Exciting to see the Chinese emerge as a manned space faring nation. along with the US and Russia.
There are still not many nations/organisations capable of launching space craft into orbit. I count
– US
– Russia
– Europe (ESA)
– Japan
– India
did I forget anyone ?
I am curious to see when and if the Chinese will join the ISS. I think they belong there along with the others.
Doctor Who and Steven Moffat score a hattrick.
The winner of this years Hugo Award for best dramatic presentation, short form is the Doctor Who episode “Blink”, written by Steven Moffat.
I am not aware of any show winning the Hugo award in three consecutive years, it is in any case very unusual. What is even more unusual is the fact that the writer of the winners was the same.
I know very well that the final show is a joint effort of a lot of people, and the Doctor Who team has certainly done a very good job of reviving the series. Kudos to the BBC and the team.
So we have the last three year’s winners :
2006 : “The Empty Child”/”The Doctor Dances”
2007 : “The Girl in the Fireplace”
2008 : “Blink”
All three among my favourites of the three seasons.
It will be interesting to see if Moffat’s new episodes “Silence in the Library”/”Forest of the Dead” will repeat the feat. The episodes were without any doubt among the best of the latest season. but I hope next year’s winner will be something else.
It is interesting to note that Steven Moffat is taking over from Russell T. Davies as the showrunner for Doctor Who in the 2010 season, and has hinted that there will be fewer “old enemies” coming back, and some change in the tone of the show. I am looking forward to it in any case.
Update :
After a check it turns out that “The Twilight Zone” has done this in 1960/61/62 for best dramatic presentation – at the time there was no distinction between short and long form. I have no information whether the same writer was responsible for the episodes.
Doctor Who Basics
By Jennifer :
Doctor Who is a science fiction series from 1963. It follows The Doctor, a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, on his journeys through time and space in his TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) a spaceship that looks like a blue police phonebox (it only looks like that because the “chameleon circuit” is broken, it would normally be able to look like practically anything). He normally has a companion, most often a female, whom he shows the wonders in space and time. The show had a pause, but restarted in 2005 with Christoffer Eccleston as the Doctor (he has now been replaced by David Tennant, the current and 10th Doctor) and Billie Piper as his companion, the human Rose Tyler (she left the show in 2006).
The Doctor himself: The Doctor is, as mentioned earlier, a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. Sadly, he had to destroy his home planet, and with it all of his own race friends as well as family, during a great Time War (the last of these), because this was the only way to save the universe from the greatest enemy of the universe, The Daleks. A cold hearted race of robot like creatures, they have no feelings except hatred and live for the goal to rid the universe from anything that isn’t “of Dalek design”. So now the 900 year old Doctor wanders the universe and on more than one occasion saves the Earth along with other planets.
Some Thoughts on Solar Energy
In the light of the previous post : “Breakthrough in Solar Energy ?” I would like to express some thought about generating and using energy.
I have, for some time, been thinking of how we could make better, more efficient use of the energy we have, one point being that distribution of energy over large distances is rather inefficient, and the energy should be harnessed more locally. For example, combine the energy generation for every house with regionally a generated reserve.
First of all, building the infrastructure, power lines, gas pipes, is expensive and energy consuming in itself.
Further, reliability. Local energy generation would make society less vulnerable to failures of the energy infrastructure (for any reason whatsoever).
Personally I would like to be at least partly self-sufficient when it comes to generating energy. and solar is the only viable energy form in that respect.
OK, we have to look into the energy efficiency of using solar cells, since the production of those use up a lot of energy.
I would think that a combination of solar cells and wind turbines would be the best for local energy generation.
More about this later ….