Personally I’m most looking forward to a new Vimes book from Pratchett…

And I love where this comic is going! Excited to see who’s coming… if we get to see them, anyway. I hope so, even if it only serves to further fuel my curiosity!

( http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/whats-better-fo/ )

And there’s a tonne of people working on the warp drive thing, too. Real flesh and blood people working the math and the physics to find that loophole that’ll make it happen.

Not guaranteeing that they’ll succeed, let alone in our lifetimes. But the work is being done.

This scene right here is why I cry when I look at the real manned space program.

Because we’re never, ever, going to be in a position where we get to say “unidentified anythingoids approaching”. Except maybe some frozen bacteria and that’ll be really, really, REALLY pushing it.

I hate living in a dead solar system in a dead galaxy with warp drive physically impossible. Science sucks.

@Rod G: Oh dear…

An azimuth can also be called a ‘bearing’ For the purpose of navigation, bearings are usually given with respect to true north, with true north being 000º. For tactical purposes, a relative bearing may be given where the direction of the target is given with respect to the direction the observer is facing. For example, if I were facing due East (090º) and I saw someone out of the corner of my eye at due south (180º), I could say that the target had a bearing of 180º true, or 090º relative <- in this case the direction I’m facing, East, becomes my reference direction (000º), and my target being ninety degrees to the right of my reference direction would be 090º relative.

Why give three digits? And why say “zero nine zero” or “one eight zero” instead of ninety degrees or one hundred and eighty degrees? Answer: Unambiguous Communication. By giving out bearings using all three possible digits, and sounding out the words for each individual number “zero one four” or “zero four zero” rather than a composite like “fourteen” or “forty”, it makes it much more difficult to mistake what I am saying, especially over a static-filled commo channel. “Fourteen” does in fact sound a lot like “Forty” on a radio – especially if your surroundings are noisy or your radio link isn’t very strong. “Zero one four” is a lot harder to mistake for “zero four zero.”

I hope this helps!

@J Wilde: This sounds like one of those times when I humbly beg my readers (who are collectively much smarter than me) to help me out! I think I have to admit that I don’t understand how bearings are used well enough. I will fix this mistake in print, but in the meantime, can you suggest a book or a site that could explain the rules/conventions for this stuff? On land, under the sea, up in space, how do you properly mark where you are?

@Dave III: Oh, absolutely! The first three chapters are collected in this book, which is for the moment still available to order direct from us or through Amazon. FYI, though, because I’m nearly completely sold out of my copies, I plan to print a second edition (traditional offset this time) in the spring. That new one will have the same content, but a new cover.

And after I get enough pages completed, you can bet I’ll be collecting them into a second volume!

I’m a bit confused by the direction given by the Galaxion on those humanoids, however. Thirty-one degrees sounds like a directionall bearing (in which case it would be more correct to say something like “zero three one degrees true/magnetic” for a compass bearing, unless the Galaxion crew up in orbit could tell which way the General was facing, in which case they could also say “zero three one degrees relative.”) Adding “Northwest” to thirty-one just bollixes up the works. Northwest is 315 degrees. 31 degrees is a touch north of northeast. Perhaps pick one or the other – the humanoids are either to the northwest or approaching along a bearing track at 031 degrees.