Just to show again that Nature contains more wonders than the mind can imagine, Science News reports that the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has spotted the tell-tale signature of antimatter in terrestrial lightning:

Designed to scan the heavens thousands to billions of light-years beyond the solar system for gamma rays, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has also picked up a shocking vibe from Earth. During its first 14 months of operation, the flying observatory has detected 17 gamma-ray flashes associated with terrestrial storms — and some of those flashes have contained a surprising signature of antimatter.

During two recent lightning storms, Fermi recorded gamma-ray emissions of a particular energy that could have been produced only by the decay of energetic positrons, the antimatter equivalent of electrons. The observations are the first of their kind for lightning storms. Michael Briggs of the University of Alabama in Huntsville announced the puzzling findings November 5 at the 2009 Fermi Symposium.

Neat!

The Science News article may be behind a subscriber firewall, so visit Watt’s Up With That for more information and analysis.

Via Strange Maps,  a rendering of the Lord of the Rings as a flowchart of the progress of the main characters. It’s too big to show here, so a sample will have to do:

Visit XKCD.com for the full diagram. They also have flow charts for Star Wars (original trilogy, of course) and Jurassic Park.

Beautiful photos of Cassini’s fly-by of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. See the giant water geysers!

And to think, had we kept up with Project Orion, we could have been there to see it in person nearly 40 years ago.

I started a new correspondence chess section this week, under the auspices of the CCLA. This is my third event with this group since leaving the US Chess Federation (You think Congress is screwed up? Try the USCF.), and I’ve been mostly happy with how things have gone. The people seem friendly and the officials helpful. Aside from one major glitch with my entry into my second event, all has gone well.

While some people still play correspondence chess by post card, more and more play is online via email or, increasingly, a web server. Web server play is great: the system keeps the official game score and watches the time limits (in CCLA, you have 40 days to make 10 moves). All you have to do is worry about your moves – and what your opponents are cooking up.

I’m playing in a section of people rated roughly equally (my own CCLA rating is about 1670 – “Class B”). I have four opponents, and we each play two games against each other: one as White and another as Black. It’s early days yet, as we’re still making our opening moves, but things have already gotten interesting in a couple of games. Here’s the position in one:

Stuart v. Ragan, CCLA Fall Server series S90251

I’m playing Black, and Mr. Stuart has just played 10. Bb5, threatening and pinning my knight. (No kibbitzing, please. We’re not allowed help with our games. I do think I have a slight advantage in this position, however.) This game had started as a kind-of Trompowsky Attack, but had evolved into into something resembling a reversed Scandinavian Defense. A bit weird, since the Scandinavian is my main defense against 1.e4.  Just this morning, however, I realized that the pawn structure most resembled a reversed Slav Defense. I’ve never played with or against a Slav in my life, though it bears some resemblance to the Scandinavian.  If this confuses you, think how I feel! I have some studying to do.

Meanwhile, it’s always fun to start a new section. I’ll try to post updates as they occur.

Some of these I quibble with and some I can’t say one way or the other (I’m not much of a baseball fan and I lost interest in basketball several years ago), but Number One is spot on.

And that picture – hah!

The cast of Criminal Minds

It’s one thing for a character in a movie or TV show to make a mistake that costs them dearly: pick the wrong door, dial the wrong number, or cut the wrong wire, and something bad happens. If no one made a mistake, then the story would never advance – or, if it did, it would be very dull.  So… mistakes happen, and the writer needs for them to happen.

It’s another thing altogether, however, for a writer to take his character from the realm of mistake to that of mind-numbingly stupid in order to advance his story. That is unacceptable; it ruins the tale.

Case in point: The other night, I was catching up on episodes of Criminal Minds, a generally very good series about a team of FBI profilers who ride to the rescue to catch serial killers and mass murderers. My writing partner and I have been following the show with the idea of writing a spec script for it.

The episode in question was titled “Roadkill,” from late last season. The killer murders his victims by running them down with his truck. Not a bad idea; it has kind of a “Christine” vibe to it. Trouble is, in each of the killings we see, the victims have to be unbelievably moronic to advance the story:

• Victim #1 is caught alone on a narrow rural road, her car broken down. A truck pulls up, and she thinks help has arrived. When she realizes the driver instead intends to run her down, she flees. Up to this point, fine. No problem. Her escape is simple, right? Just run off into the nearby woods where the truck cannot follow her. So, of course, the writers have her run along the road ahead of the truck, eventually meeting her grisly death
• Victim #2 is caught in a multi-level parking structure. When he realizes the psycho is trying to run him down, does he run into the nearby public stairwell where the half-ton pickup cannot go? Nope. Does he hide behind other cars, using them for cover until he can escape? Nah, that would be too logical. No, this fool runs ahead of the truck down a spiral ramp until he’s crushed against an elevator door.

In both cases, the victims were so dumb that I was left with little sympathy for them. They deserved to die. And the writers deserve to be mocked mercilessly.

The problem with mandated stupidity is that it breaks the suspension of disbelief. Instead of being caught up in the story, the viewer is suddenly shaking his head and asking that famous question, “WTF?” And, as I mention above, you stop caring what happens to the characters. If you don’t change the channel, you keep watching just to see how much worse the cluster-frak before your eyes will get, like watching a train wreck happen in front of you.

And that is a moment of failure as a writer.

Both writers have excellent credits to their names, so how did something this bad get out of the writer’s room? I can only guess there was time-pressure to get the episode shot and in the can to meet the schedule, and that there was no time for an extensive rewrite.  Whatever the reason, Roadkill is a good example for budding writers of what not to do.

The trailer for the miniseries remake of the surreal classic, The Prisoner.

Some observations:

• I can already tell Ian McKellen will steal the show.
• A friend in the movie-trailer business once warned me that you see the best parts in any trailer.
• Remakes always leave me wondering “If the original was so wonderful, why does it need a do-over?”
• Like the gentlemen at Exurban League, let us hope this does not suck.

The site for the miniseries.

The site is linked in the sidebar to the right, but I wanted to promote Megadungeon.net as something special: a collaborative, volunteer-based design of of a large, ruined monastery and dungeon in the tradition of the early days of roleplaying games, especially Dungeons and Dragons. Even if you don’t play D&D, the maps are quite nice and easily ported to other games. There are some nice new creatures, too.

Well done.

Via Breitbart:

Insane killer escapes on field trip to county fair

A criminally insane killer from eastern Washington is on the run after escaping during a field trip to the county fair that his mental hospital organized.

Why such a dangerous person was out in public was a question many, including Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, were asking as authorities searched for Phillip Arnold Paul.

Authorities at Eastern State Hospital, where Paul is a patient, are being criticized for allowing him to visit the fair despite his violent criminal past and a history of trying to escape.

An insane killer? Escaped at the fair? You just know that, when he’s caught (and let’s hope it’s soon), he’ll be wearing a clown suit.

Popular Mechanics has an article on the 10 Deadliest Plants in the World. My favorite? Oleander. So common, yet so fatal:

This extremely common evergreen shrub is one of the most poisonous plants in the world. “If I were a parent and covering every electrical outlet in the home to protect the kids, I would really have to ask myself why I had an oleander plant growing,” Stewart says. The leaves, flowers and fruit contain cardiac glycosides, which have therapeutic applications but are likely to send someone into cardiac arrest should he eat part of the plant. Stewart points out that there is a woman in California currently on death row for trying to poison her husband with the plant, and two young boys were found dead after ingesting oleander a few years back. “People tend to be blasé, because the flowers are bright and pretty, sort of candy-colored. But it is a very poisonous plant that will stop your heart.”

Happy gardening!