Chapter Five! At last! (Although as I look at this page now I realize I failed to actually put the words “Chapter Five” on it… oh well, that’s yet another minor edit that can be corrected in the print version…) I’m excited to be here. We’re not quite breaking new ground yet (for those of you who read the earlier version from, oh my gosh I can’t just say “last decade” anymore, can I???), but we’re getting closer.
The holidays are officially over now, and I’m doing my best to move back into the familiar routine. I got a Kindle for Christmas and I spent a lot of my holiday time delighting in reading books on it. There’s a lot of stuff available for free out there, and I dove right in! So for anyone looking for some books to read, I can offer up for recommendation Resonance by Chris Dolley (out of print? Oh dear. Well, check used book stores, check your local library, or you can read it/download it at the Baen Free Library), a real page-turner of a sci-fi story, and for something completely different, Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson, which is an entertaining and funny YA novel, something along the lines of The Princess Diaries but without the princess part (I hope I didn’t just make it sound completely lame there, but really, it’s a great read!). And now I’m having to adjust back to paper (ha!) as I settle into the book that was actually my husband’s Christmas present, Unseen Academicals! (Don’t worry, I let him read it first. 
) There’s little in the book world I look forward to as much as a new Terry Pratchett (except a new Vorkosigan book (Cryoburn! October 2010!)).
Also, if you missed the New Year’s post, be sure to check it out. Speaking of reading. 
Time for some action!
A new chapter makes a nice clean start to the New Year! I started reading the floppies, but decided to hold off so that the webcomic would be brand new – glad I did – excitement building!
Congrats on the new Kindle as well – nice to see them available in Canada now, eh?
One of those gadgets got shown off at my local Mac users’ group meeting this past weekend. Still not quite sure what to make of them.
I like the top panel – it really gives me a sense of just how big the ship is compared to its surroundings.
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.
“Print Version”? Is that a confirmation that you intend to do one? (bounces excitedly)
@Kev: I was annoyed for a long time that the Kindle was only available in the States, and then when the first world-wide service announcement was made, and Canada wasn’t on the list…! Anyway, I got one now. It’s still not the perfect device, but I adore it anyway.
@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!
This might be a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azimuth
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!
As I recall from the printed Galaxion Book 1,Patty (she of the . . . unique . . . taste in headgear) ended up getting killed by the natives.
@J Wilde: Thank you, it does help! That’s as good a starting point as I’ve seen so far. It never would have occurred to me to search under “Azimuth.”
@Rod G: Oh dear…
And the Star Trek stuff begins! For the first time!
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.
We still haven’t gotten that close a look at Mars, Titan or Europa yet.
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.
I hope so. I need to get a copy of “Frontiers of Propulsion Science” and find out what Marc Millis has been doing since the NASA Breakthrough Propulsion project got canned.
( http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/whats-better-fo/ )
The new Vorkosigan book is coming out this year??? AAAHH!!! Excitement!
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!
Just occurred to me that the General is being very technocentric here. Just because they don’t have fancy scanners doesn’t mean they can’t track you.