Hmm. Technical Idea For Use At Some Point...

The brain of a writer -- particularly a science fiction writer -- is a weird thing. One has Ideas. Frequently. But with the pace of technological development, it's not unusual to find that the nifty new idea you've had is already in development by somebody, somewhere. And then again, the prospect of trying to nail down and make money out of any of these ideas... too damned painful for words, really.

And so I shan't be collecting any royalties on movies-for-rent-by-download, which system was dreamed up sometime back in the eighties during a particularly stoned evening (as much by Dugg --MHRIP! -- as by myself, I admit!) Nor will I be getting credit for the Internet Fridge, which I described in detail to Natalie, back in 1996 when I was trying to explain that this "Internet" thing was going to become quite important to everyday life. (Anyway, my version was better than theirs. Mine had a barcode scanner, so you could keep track of the expiry dates on the milk and stuff. And it had software that automatically contacted your local supermarket and put in an order as required...)

Not really important. It's just interesting considering these things, you know?

Anyway, I was just reading up on E-Ink again. If you don't know about this stuff already, you're a bit behind the times. It's a low-power data display system utilising microscopic, pigmented beads suspended in a flexible matrix. They use it for E-books, and it's cool because the display is persistent (only needs power to change) and it's reasonably durable and it's flexible, and they're about to release a colour version of it. Best of all, it relies on reflected light -- it's a 'true image' rather than a 'light image' such as you get from CRTs and LEDs and OLEDs and even from backlight LCDs.

Apparently, the advertising industry is excited by it too. Imagine billboards that can change at the press of a button, to take on any image you can send. Cool, eh?

And then I thought... oh. You know who could really use this stuff? The military. Because, you know -- camouflage is good, yeah, but imagine coating your big-ass trucks and guns and tanks and ships and planes in a layer of this stuff. And incorporating a few cameras here and there, and a single processor to read the images and alter the image on your E-ink surfaces appropriately.

You know: so that whatever was behind or beneath your big military toy got projected onto its surface. Just as if the big military toy wasn't actually in the way.

It wouldn't be invisibility, precisely, no. Difficult to account for parallax and angles and so forth. But it would be seriously fucking effective active camouflage, able to change at an instant's notice to match whatever theatre of war, whichever environment you happened to be hiding in.

Naturally, it wouldn't alter your IR image, nor soak up your EM signature, nor even confuse radar. But it sure as shit would make a difference to satellite and aerial photography, and it would definitely make your old-school Man-With-A-Pair-Of-Binoculars work very, very hard indeed.

It's feasible right now, with current tech. Expensive, yes - but definitely not outside the range of typical military expenditures. And of course, you'd make the stuff modular, so you could just smooth it on like sticky wallpaper; put a new layer on over the top of any damaged stuff.

Pretty cool idea. Think I should bother trying to get credit for it?

Nahhhh. That way lies madness. I'll just incorporate 'invisible tanks' into a story sometime, somewhere, and shrug my shoulders when the real-world military announces how clever they've become. My Invisible Tank can go sit in the garage with my Internet Fridge and my Echo-Locating Mobile Phone and all the rest of that stuff.

I've got lots more to play with anyhow.

If A Tree Falls In Your Back Yard And Nobody Hears, Who The Fuck Has To Clean It Up?

So yeah: that would be the branch that fell off the tree in the back yard. Now you know why I'm trying to find some hero with a chainsaw and one of those flatbed trucks with the mini-crane on the back.

That's Blackwood, you see. Acacia melanoxylon -- one of the wattle family. The timber is very high quality, prized by instrument-makers among others, and there's a sizably long, satisfactorily straight chunk of it now sprawled across my back paddock. I'm not too bad with a chainsaw, but I am definitely not game to try and cut the supports out from underneath what looks like a tonne or so of hardwood suspended about two and a half metres above the ground.

What I want to do is get it trimmed down to a couple of five-metre logs or so, then shifted to a dry spot near one of our sheds. I'll put down some old tyres or something, and throw a tarp over the top, and with a bit of luck in a few years we can send the thing to the sawmill. Or is it the other way round? Sawmill first, then season the planks? I dunno. I'm sure someone can tell me. What I do know: I am not qualified to handle this one.

Right. Looks like it's about time to start dinner. Still got a bunch of things to do -- cleaning, tidying... I finished planting strawberries in the new strawberry-thingee today, so with a bit of luck in a couple months we'll be seeing the first of a shiny new crop. Yum. And yes, this time they're protected by fence from wallaby and rabbit, protected by netting from birds, lifted off the ground to keep slugs and field mice at bay... and now lifted even higher, with the potential for added mosquito-netting if the goddam grasshoppers go apeshit like they did last year. Shit, the things I have to do to grow a decent feed of strawberries! Lucky the blackberries aren't so picky.

Thought for the day:

Flinthart's Corollary to Goldman's Thesis: "Dance All You Want, Sweetheart -- But It Ain't A Revolution Until Someone Puts The Fat Bastards Against The Wall And Shoots 'Em."

Further Conversations In The Ineffable

"What if God was a gigantic chicken?"

Yep. Younger Son has taken flight. I'm not even gonna pause in my driving. I've gotta get down the hill to Neighbour Anna's place, pick up two of her boys, then drive into Launceston so her kids and mine can take in a morning of gymnastics at the PCYC. "As I understand it," I says, cool as St Frigidaire the Theologian, "God can be whatever he wants to be. So, you know - he could be a gigantic chicken. Yeah."

From the back seat, thoughtfully: "But... what if he was only a gigantic chicken?"

"Nope. He can be whatever he wants. By definition. Or he's not God, right?"

"Yes, but it would explain a lot, wouldn't it?"

I wrestle the Mighty Earth King around the corner into the dirt road that runs up to Neighbour Anna's place. The winds -- the equinoctial gales of Spring -- have arrived a little early. We lost a gigantic limb from the big old blackwood last night. It's fallen to earth, propped on its secondary branches, big enough to be a decent-sized tree in its own right. I'll have to find someone to help me cut the main log so we can season it for timber; blackwood is a beautiful, valuable wood, and there's a lot of it on the ground right now. And the same winds that knocked it down are bellowing around the car, pushing it back and forth while I ponder Younger Son's last gnomic prognostication.

"I don't get it," I admit finally. "Explain what?"

"Well, if God was a gigantic chicken, it would explain why he's not doing a very good job of looking after the world, wouldn't it?"

Out of the mouths of babes, as they say. We've had this discussion, the boys and I: on the plausibility of a God, and an all-seeing, all-loving Creator who looks after his patch. And no matter how often I present the idea that we simply aren't equipped to comprehend the awesomeness of Godly plans, both boys seem to think that wars, starvation, disease, pollution, privation, natural disasters and man-made fuckups on a global scale speak very, very poorly of the record of any self-respecting God. And... Cthulhu help me... I can't find it in me to argue with them on that point. So: Younger Son's suggestion that perhaps God is a gigantic chicken does, perhaps, have some merit, viewed through the peculiarly skewed lens of Younger Son logic.

I mean. How else do you explain things like Rush Limbaugh and Stephen Conroy?

"Yeah, but if God is only a gigantic chicken, then by definition he's not really God," I insist. Theology to the fore! I can argue imaginary stuff as well as any medieval pole-sitter, surely?

It doesn't matter. Younger Son is on a roll. "And imagine all the people who have been worshipping him," he says. "If they found out he was a gigantic chicken. Aaaah! they'd scream. We've been worshipping a chicken! A great, big, stupid chicken! Aaaah!" And then, completely bamboozled by his own imagery, he breaks into uproarious giggles.

And, Cthulhu help me, I'm right behind him. Heh. Imagine if God was a gigantic chicken, eh? Wouldn't the Pope look like a right tosser? And all those rabbis, all those imams... imagine the look on all those beardy faces, confronted with the Holiest of Holy Fowl. Oh! Oh! And just think of the inheritors of Colonel Sanders! Ha!

Just another day in the Realm of Flinthart the Lesser...

What The Hell Is This?

What is this?

Well, if you guessed 'an angry Coke bottle', you're considerably more perspicacious than anyone has a right to be. But if you guessed 'a hand-drawn and completely inexplicable Father's Day card created by Flinthart's demented Younger Son and delivered sometime around dawn's buttcrack on Sunday while Flinthart was still in bed wondering how to turn it all off', you're absolutely extraordinary. And if by some incredible feat of psychiatric alchemy you have managed to divine the underlying link between 'an angry Coke bottle' and 'Happy Father's Day' -- please, for the love of my sanity contact me at once. I haven't yet mustered up the courage to try prying into the bewildering labyrinth of Younger Son's baroquely twisted imaginings.

Yep. That was my Father's Day morning. The Elder Son made a card too, and the Mau-Mau gave me a certificate for a free hug, and brought me an enormous mass of slightly second-hand helium balloons which were hanging around after her official birthday party the day before.

Mmm. Secondhand helium balloons.

I duly did the proper fatherly thing, and set a hideously bad example: ripped the end off a balloon, sucked back a lungful of helium, and roared out a Mickey Mouse-voiced verse of Advance Australia Fair to greet the morning and delight the offspring. Do Not Try This At Home. Helium Isn't Oxygen. If You Try To Breathe It Too Long You Will Pass Out.

At least, that's what it said on the helium cylinder. Jeez, they're horny for warning labels these days, aren't they? They also carefully included instructions about not trying to inhale the stuff straight from the tank for fear of (and I'm not exaggerating here: I'm quoting) rupturing your lung sacs and drowning in your own blood.

Long gone, it seems, are the days when you could harmlessly neck a little of the universe's most non-toxic substance out of a balloon and amuse the kiddies with potty-mouthed Donald Duck impressions. The world gets a little smaller, a little more mean-spirited and boring every fricking day, apparently. Fuck you, Fun Nazis. There are still some balloons lying around the house today. There's a damned good chance I may even do some helium-powered cricket commentaries in the near future... take that!

I have to admit that the breakfast in bed experience wasn't too terrible, though. I got a big mug of green tea (lukewarm. Why was that? I never did find out, though Elder Son apologised in advance) and two slabs of whole-grain toast with avocado and fresh-ground Mountain Pepper. And of course, I got a triple wriggling armful of kids. Oh, and Elder Son recorded some bizarre Father's Day messages for me on his el cheapo MP3 player. Man, he loves the voice-recorder function on that thing...

The Mau-Mau's party the day before went very nicely. Both boys pulled the plug early, begging desperately for permission to spend the day visiting friends. Permission was duly granted, though Natalie was a little miffed.

"The Mau-Mau went to their pirate parties and Godzilla parties and joined in," she said. "How come they don't want to come to her fairy princess party?"

Indeed. Who can imagine why two noisy, robust boys might not enjoy a houseful of four-year-old girls in pink dresses, being fairy princesses? Especially when said fairy princesses like nothing better than ordering everybody in sight to fetch and carry, etc?

Did I mention there were helium balloons? Naturally, they were colour co-ordinated. And there were an awful lot more than this.

I made parfaits. All fairy princesses like parfaits, apparently.

Also, there were lollipops. And face painting.

I did the face-painting. It looked a lot better before an hour's worth of fairy princess playtime eroded it. I painted two fairy princess clowns, three fairy princess cats, and one fairy princess dog. Really, there should have been more photos...

Save The Dragons

Dave Freer is one of the more off-beat, funny and pleasant figures of SF. I had the great pleasure of meeting him a few years back at a con in Melbourne, and then he and his good wife dropped by Chez Flinthart on their trek through Tassie. He gets the Flinthart "Yarrrharrrr! Avast!" of approval with both lungs.

Anyway, for the last few years Dave has been working his way towards becoming an expatriate South African. Cunningly, he plans to do it in Australia, which is a lot easier than doing it in South Africa - so I'm told, anyway.

Problem is, Dave has a lot of critters: a much-loved collection of rescued dogs and cats and he really, really wants to bring them with him. However, you can't bring a critter from SA to Oz without copious quarantinage, and that, my friends, costs a bomb. And a half.

Dave's response? He has set up a website where he's posting chapters of a book he's written that's not yet seen publication. For every $400 raised he's putting up a new chapter. Folk who donate more than $25 will receive a signed copy of the book once it does see hardcopy publication.

This isn't ex-President Winston Kudogo of Nigeria, mi amigos. This is the real thing, and it's a chance to offer a helping hand to someone inside the SF industry who deserves all the help we can give him. Even a couple of bucks would be helpful.. There's more information at the actual site -- which is where I'm going right now, to toss a few dollars into the virtual hat.

Save The Dragons!

PS: Yes, Birmo. He writes Science Fiction too.

And Then It Rained Again.

But yesterday afternoon was clear, and this morning -- this morning was one of those exquisitely clear spring mornings that only ever seem to happen in Tasmania, after the rain. The world was green and gorgeous, the sun was bright, the sky was blue... bloody spectacular.

I got my two new hazelnut trees in with a minimum of fuss. And I put the two little tea-bushes inside a very well fenced enclosure. There will be no goddam tea-munching wallabies on my watch, the rotten little macropodic barstewards.

The Younger Son has been shedding teeth at a ferocious rate. In keeping with his metabolism, he's lost all four bottom incisors in the space of a month or so, and two replacements are already sizzling their way upwards. Elder Son took about six months to lose all four, and it seemed like forever before he got his grinning gear back in order. But... yeah, it seems likely both boys will need braces. There's a history of it from both parents.

I absolutely hated my braces. Only had 'em for six months before everything was back in order. Natalie, though - she got the braces and the bumper-bar too, apparently. Says at least one of her brothers was a right horror-show as well. Blah.

I wanted to take advantage of the sunshine this morning -- run the chainsaw, cut some deadfalls for firewood, knock down a few wattles that have sprung up in inconvenient locations. Unfortunately, two of the very necessary tools associated with the chainsaw have gone walkabout. Did I loan them to someone? I can't recall. The chainsaw is there. The fuel is there. The bar lube is there. But the big screwdriver to open the fuel and the oil tanks -- that's not. And the rat-tail file with the sharpening guide on it -- that's not, either.

Not in the top shed. Not in the garage. Not in the laundry. Not in the hallway cupboard with miscellaneous hardware. Not in the back of the car. Not in the big toolchest on the front of the trailer. Just... not there.

I really, really fucking hate that.

So. I got out an axe, put a nice edge on the bastard thing with a stone, and cut down a couple of the more annoying wattles the hard way. It was more about exercise than utility, I admit, but I was pissed off. I really wanted to get through the chainsaw work while the sun was here -- for lo and behold, by the time I'd Paul Bunyanized my second tree, the clouds had rolled over the mountains, and the rain was chundering down once more.

I'm headed into Launceston tomorrow. I'll get another goddam big screwdriver, and another couple of files with guides to sharpen the chainsaw. But who the fuck knows when I'll get another sunny day with Natalie home to keep the kids out from underfoot?

It Didn't Rain.

Friday, that is. Oh, well... yeah, a few drops in the afternoon. But otherwise, it didn't rain. That was different.

The meeting at the school went well. Two teachers, a vice-principal sort, and me in my paint-stained slacks and sandals. The schoolfolk have done the right thing, though. They've taken the attitude that their charter calls for them to supply an appropriate educational experience, and that the assessment of Elder Son now calls for certain measures -- so if they don't come up with 'em, they're not doing the job right.

I wouldn't have put it so bluntly... but when it was put that way, I certainly took the opportunity to agree.

Anyway, an Individual Education Plan has been created, and examined, and discussed, and it's not bad. They've invoked Bloom's Taxonomy -- specifically the cognitive domain -- and the idea is that for each new unit, a range of activities is plotted which allow a broad exploration of the unit in line with Bloom's ideas. Elder Son gets to choose a spread of activities, with a little guidance, and then has to put them into action.

Right now, they're looking at a book: it's a bio of the bloke who started Qantas. Elder Son has chosen to design a new Qantas logo, and is also querying his classmates for their favorite flight destinations; answers to be tabulated, and then graphed for display using Excel. Of course, he's got to read the book, and there are several other activities on the list to be followed up, but you get the picture: there are choices, and they're not brain-dead, repetitive things, and he gets input as to how he goes about his learning.

We're cutting back on home time, which will be good for me. And I shall be supplying Spanish word-lists to be incorporated with the routine school-time lists of vocabulary and spelling, so some of the Spanish-study load will be distributed better too. Likewise, the school is supplying a laptop computer, and hooking him into their net, and giving him email access, and permitting to do his work by typing, and he'll be learning cursive script immediately -- so there's a lot of movement from everyone.

The meeting lasted more than an hour. I was pretty happy with the outcomes, and when I explained it to Elder Son, he seemed pretty pleased as well. We'll change our timetable over after the school holidays, which start at the end of next week.

I also managed to pick up a couple new hazelnut saplings from the nursery. We've got hazelnuts already, but I'm not impressed with the location, so I'm going to start a new grove. Maybe more. (And I note that hazelnuts can support truffles. Yes. I'm thinking very hard about that one: Tasmania has a growing truffle industry. No, I don't want to be a farmer. But... I like truffles. And who can argue with $1000 a kilogramme for something you dig up off the roots of your trees?)

I also scored a couple of little Camellia sinensis -- tea plants, for the uninitiated. It seems that they're frost tolerant to -6C or thereabouts (which is three degrees colder than I've EVER seen it here), they like well-drained, slightly acid soils with plenty of organic matter... in short, they should take off like scalded cats once I get 'em in the ground. They were cheap, too: just $3.00 each because they were small. I think I'll go back and get another ten or so. I can grow my own tea! Yaaay!

Tea is good. You just pick the leaves, and if you want green tea (which I like) you simply leave 'em in the sun for a while to wilt, then dry 'em in a hot oven for a half-hour or so. That's it.

Coffee, on the other hand... all that goddam roasting and shucking and grinding... luckily, frost kills every known variety of coffee plant, so despite Natalie's grumping, there's nothing I can do about it. Short of building a goddam hothouse. Which, I suppose, is only a matter of time.