Well, why not? And this thing looks desperately cool.
“Everyone’s dreamt of flying free as a bird. Nano is for the fun of flying – no passengers, no cargo – just you, Nano and the endless blue. If you’ve ever had a pilot’s licence you’ll fly Nano right out of the box. The rest of you will need to learn the simple rules of the air. Minimum red tape – maximum thrills.”
Wow! Just let me loose on the Starnberger See with one of these.
Check out this website, which specializes in nothing but the low cost airlines:
If it can’t find a carrier for a route you’re interested in, it brings up a whole sheaf of other travel sites for you to search. Some of these I’d never even heard of (which is saying something).
There are also blogs associated with the site (the “wing blog” seems a little outdated, but the “wheel blog” and “bed blog” are more up to date). One interesting link that came up on the bed blog, btw: TabletHotels, “Hotels for Global Nomads”. I always like it when a site offers me hotels I’ve stayed at and loved (it just showed me, in one of the hotel images, the very table I sat at in the dining room when I was last there). Check out this one, for example, attached to a famously cool spa facility I’ve wanted to go to for a long time.
(sigh) No time right now for any kind of travel except the virtual. But it’s fun to be able to look at these things and think about when things get a little quieter, a couple of months down the line…
There are various book memes that seem to have been around forever…and So You Want to Be a Wizard is number 356 on one of them, a meme apparently native to LiveJournal. (Here’s an example, and here, and here, and here…)
I was glancing at the list today, and an idea came up. Eventually it’d be interesting to go down that list and tag it to indicate (a) living authors, and (b) living authors with web presences, and (c) living authors whose web presences include blogs.
Later. In my copious free time. 
Right now, it’s just fun to be in the meme.
[tags] meme, book[/tags]
Somewhere definitive, perhaps, to send your cellphone video of crashing zeppelins…
Beginning tomorrow, media companies Yahoo! and Reuters will allow members of the public to upload or e-mail photos and videos to illustrate breaking news stories. The “You Witness” service, which aims to turn the world’s hundreds of millions of camera phones into a news resource, is available at http://news.yahoo.com/page/youwitnessnews and http://www.reuters.com/youwitness. Yahoo! may eventually solicit user contributions for other areas including sports, entertainment and international sites.
Reuters will edit and vet selected photos and distribute them to other news outlets. Yahoo! and Reuters are working on a plan to compensate contributors whose photos or videos are selected for syndication.
[tags]YouTube, Reuters, Yahoo, youwitnessnews[/tags]
Ron Moore is going to be writing the screenplay for the new version of The Thing. (via Variety and various other sources)
Go Ron!!
(And something from the Variety article that seems to have slipped under the radar: “Moore, who’s repped by CAA, just scripted an “I, Robot” sequel for Fox.”)
[tags]Ronald D. Moore, Ron Moore, Battlestar Galactica, BSG, The Thing, John Carpenter[/tags]
For those of you who’ve been asking: here’s what I’m doing at LACon. (For Peter’s schedule, you should go check his LiveJournal later today: he’ll be putting his details up there. He’s a lot more lightly scheduled than I am, though, by his own request.) (Oh, and the master schedule for the con is here.)
“(M)” means that person is moderating.
Panel 1: Thu 8/24 10:00 AM, 60-90 minutes.
Title: DEVELOPING YOUR PROPERTY FOR THE MEDIA
Participants: Diane Duane, Dave Smeds, M. Christine Valada, Esq.(M), Doselle Young
Precis: Okay, you’ve written a novel, created a comic book, or done
a series of dynamite drawings. How can you get your
“intellectual property” from where its at to the tv and
movie screen?
—————————————-
Panel 2: Thu 8/24 1:00 PM, 60-90 minutes.
Title: L. A. CONFIDENTIAL
Participants: Amy Sterling Casil, Michael Cassutt, Diane Duane, Richard Foss, Mike Glyer(M)
Precis: So many science fiction and fantasy stories are set in Los
Angeles. What makes Los Angeles such a great place to write
about?
—————————————-
Panel 3: Thu 8/24 2:30 PM, 60-90 minutes.
Title: GUERILLA MARKETING FOR THE NEO-PRO
Participants: Tobias S. Buckell, Diane Duane(M), Robert B Hole, Jr., Vera Nazarian, Don Sakers
Precis: You don’t have the money to take out ads in “Publishers
Weekly” or “Time Magazine”. What do you do to build “brand
value”? How do you promote yourself without turning off
your audience? How do you get more sales? How can you
connect with your fledgling fan base?
—————————————-
Panel 4: Fri 8/25 10:00 AM, 60-90 minutes.
Title: WRITING FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS
Participants: Diane Duane(M), Ellen Klages, Rebecca Moesta, Garth Nix, William F. Wu
Precis: Does it take special training or knowledge to write books
and stories for children and young adults? Are they
different from adult works in any way, other than
vocabulary? How do you break in? And if you write for kids,
is it hard to also write for adults?
—————————————-
Panel 5: Sat 8/26 12 Noon, 60 minutes.
Title: READING: DIANE DUANE
Participants: Diane Duane
(I’ll be reading from A Wizard of Mars, if anyone’s interested.)
And probably my favorite:
—————————————-
Panel 6: Sat 8/26 1:00 PM, 60-90 minutes.
Title: THE FIRST STAR TREK CONVENTIONS
Participants: Linda Deneroff, Diane Duane, Devra Langsam, Bjo Trimble, Ben Yalow(M)
Precis: What were they like? Who could have guessed so many
thousands would show up? What’s different between the Star
Trek conventions of today and the ones of the earliest
days? And how do the “Creation Cons” fit into the mix?
—————————————-
Panel 7: Sun 8/27 11:00 AM, 60 minutes.
Title: KAFFEKLATSCH: DIANE DUANE
Participants: Diane Duane
Precis: Kaffee. Klatsch. You do the math.
***
So there we are. During much of the rest of the convention — when friends’ panels or meetings with various people aren’t otherwise on the schedule — I have a feeling that P. and I will be operating under normal UK con rules, which more or less stipulate that if one is not to be found in/on programming, the bar is the next best bet (and for this occasion add, “fan room”).
For those of you who want to have things signed, since as far as I can tell I don’t have a per se signing scheduled, probably the best place to catch me is after the reading: we’ll decamp somewhere else and get it done.
[tags]LACon IV, Worldcon, World Science Fiction Convention, Peter Morwood, Diane Duane[/tags]
The Independent has turned Comet Swift-Tuttle into Comet Swift-Turtle. Twice.
(Not only a typo, but an oxymoron…! Nice going, guys and gals.)
Oh well. Hope it clears up a little so that we can see the Perseids…
[tags]astronomy, science, Perseid, meteor shower[/tags]
[tags]physics, monopole, inflation theory, Higgs field, new universe, baby universe[/tags]
Won’t need sugar in the tea this morning…
(Hmm… I wonder if anyone in Ireland is breeding these guys…)
Now playing: Kenneth Gilbert – Air vif pour Zephire et la Rose (piece croisee)
[tags]cat, cats, Bengal, kitten, kittens, oooh, cute[/tags]
On summer evenings, when the little ultrasonic things that keep bugs and mice out of the house are turned on, if the windows are going to be open, turn the ultrasonics off. Otherwise the local pipistrelle bats come in the windows and start hunting through the house for the strange mutant bat-thing that’s suddenly appeared on their territory and is making these weird noises.
(sigh)
Now playing: Tina Turner & Elton John – The Bitch is Back
[tags] bats, pipistrelle, protected species, Ireland, summer[/tags]
Stephanie Jaworski’s venerable JoyOfCakes.com has been beautifully redesigned. I wandered over there this morning and instantly started drooling.
(sigh) Duane’s Twelfth Law: You will always come across a particularly scrumptious-looking food site at the moment when you were just getting into the business of dumping a few pounds. Feh…
[tags]Food, cooking, cake, baking[/tags]