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Some more stuff is up.
Now with the notorious Janus sonnet and a map inspired by Neverwhere, by Neil’s permission and with a share going to benefit the CBLDF.
I've just been to the Cafe Press site to inspect the goodies, which look fab. I'm just having a bugger of a time trying to get a close-up look at the Cosmology poster. When I click on the "zoom-in" thingo, I wind up with a blank image. Would you mind reposting the text of this item here, please?
As far as further product ideas go: I'd also suggest your history of artificial intelligence piece, which was a hoot!
COSMOLOGY: A USER'S MANUAL
[Greek letter alpha]
First Cause, the Word, Big Bang -- what name you choose,
One bright note sounds. A symphony ensues.
ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE.
If we, who love the light, had never been,
The stars would find new shoes for dancing in.
BOUNDARY CONDITION.
Beyond, no fusion burns to light the stars;
The waves will not collapse, the joke won't parse.
CAUSALITY.
First one cuts down the tree, then hears it fall --
It seems we don't need this one, after all.
DARK MATTER.
Our sight and hearing span the spectrum, yet
Most of the universe plays hard-to-get.
EMISSION LINES.
The(stellar fires are profligate indeed,)
And what they throw away, we glean and read.
FERMI'S PARADOX.
Hello out there! We're here! Do come and play!
Don't mind what our old broadcast quanta say.
GRAND UNIFIED THEORY.
You hold the chalk, and I'll apply the glue;
Oh, dear, that's loose again. One's never through --
HUBBLE CONSTANT.
The galaxies rush on; the redshifts climb,
And loneliness increases over time.
INFLATIONARY UNIVERSE.
When it was new, the cosmos moved right quick;
Then (sound familiar?) things began to stick.
JEANS, JAMES.
"Like a great thought," he said, but did not cease
To search and blueprint its machineries.
KEPLER, JOHANNES.
He wished elliptic orbits to prove wrong,
Yet still proposed them. Reason's whips are strong.
LORENZ CONTRACTION.
If you will not stand still, while I do so,
I shall see you diminished as you go.
MICROWAVE BACKGROUND.
The cosmic egg-shell cupped against your ear,
The rush of the dark ocean's plain to hear.
NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY.
It's not that he was wrong, the clever Greek;
But where bare Beauty's seen from, so to speak.
OPEN/OSCILLATING UNIVERSE.
So will it stop, or not? The answer tells
Much less about the stars than of ourselves.
PLANCK EPOCH.
One flash when gravity was consummate --
No era spans less time, or greater weight.
QUANTUM LEAP.
The particle is here, and then is there --
But never in between. How does it dare?
RELATIVITY.
One clock stayed on the ground; its double flew.
And it ran slow. So, then. The mad thing's true.
STRING THEORY.
The particles extend like tightened strings,
And when their frets are plucked, they chord all things.
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT.
First conjure up that one you love to please.
Now, once again, with quarks, or galaxies.
UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE.
Position, yes, or speed, but not the two:
To learn, to see, must be to alter, too.
VIRTUAL PARTICLES.
Some facts (see Heisenberg) we cannot know,
So mass can rise from void, and back there go.
WAVE FUNCTION.
Reduced to mathematics, matter's germ --
"Reduced?" What an unfeeling, thoughtless term!
X-RAY ASTRONOMY.
Beyond the atmosphere, a higher light
Proclaims unique new glories of the night.
YANG-MILLS THEORY.
All sterile are Narcissus and his twin:
When symmetries are broken, things begin.
Zo PARTICLES.
Too massive in thin space to ever thrive,
Yet, rarae aves, dinosaurs survive.
[Greek letter omega]
Heat death or cold, in randomness or Cause,
It is not how it ends, but what it was.
Check line 10 of the sonnet -- "ma" for "may".
Mike, OK if your user's manual of comology gets passed on to others?
Also, since you brought up Neverwhere... That reminds me I have to watch it again. Been too long. And do you or anybody else know what's going on with the big-screen adaptation?
Oh thank you! Last time I looked there were not so many mugs and posters, and now there are. Whee!
Serge, I don't know what Mike's take on it is, but I always flinch a little at passed on. I've had pieces of my writing go samizdat, and I'm sure Mike has too.
I simply meant sending an email of it to one of my friends. She's also a writer and is very ticklish about writers losing rights to their creations (Elisabeth Vonarburg is funny that way). Still, if she sends it to yet another person, Mike's work might wind up in the hands of someone who is not too ethical.
I'll just skip it. Better that way all around.
Serge, might she be interested in a link to the text in question?
She could, Aconite, but the issue of dissemination would still be there.
But she would most likely forward on the link, not the text. There's no way to prevent its being copied. The best we can do is not do it ourselves. If the link gets passed around, it might actually generate sales for Mike.
Cosmology and the Janus sonnet are both in Heat of Fusion, along with several other verses and stories.
Oooo, neat :)
Still impatiently waiting for my elegant Shakespeherian Rags to arrive; during the meanwhile, I wonder how the Janus sonnet would look half left-justified and half right-justified, instead of all centered-- could the ragged ends be made into a more facial profile that way, as well as making the Janissary nature more obvious? (No, that probably isn't the right adjective, but it sounds nice there.)
Wow, thank you so much for posting that.
I wonder how the Janus sonnet would look half left-justified and half right-justified...
Unbalanced. And rag left rarely looks very good, though there are sometimes reasons for doing it; it can work for a few lines, or if the lines are relatively even (as when you're setting block text, and can move words to balance the lines). It's really not good at all when the lines are very different in length. (Imagine the differences that are there now, doubled.) In fact, I'm now regretting doing the centering (it's always been set plain ol' flush left). Thank you for the interest, though.
Serge -- why not buy it for her as a poster, it's only $7.
A poster, Jo? Hmmm... Where, where?
Serge-- Um, here?
Or did you want something even more specific than that?
Great post! I’ll subscribe right now wth my feedreader software!
Of the usual mindless sort.
Is it really spam? There's no load there. No link or anything, and Googling the name gets someone who's a junior member of the Webmasters' Forum.
OTOH it does seem to be plugging the feedreader software. I don't know.
On the other hand, it got me to look at Mike's "stuff" again. Now I'm crying, but I think I've got a birthday present for Mom.
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