President Alicia Henn posted a link to this (well-written) article by Roy Blount, Jr., addressing the question of whether authors should receive payment for audio rights as a result of Kindle 2 (and other similar devices) converting text versions of works to speech.

An interesting question. My initial impression is that having your device read your book aloud is no different than having a friend read it to you. That seems like a fair use of the product that you have purchased. However, Blount presents a strong case for author compensation as a result of Kindle readings. Click the title to see why.

These are a series of books by Richard K. Morgan set hundreds of years in the future in which we have colonized other worlds on distant stars courtesy of found technology - technology found on Mars. The technology is a combination of faster-than-light broadcasting, personality recording, and body reproduction such that one's personality is beamed to a distant location faster than light and "decanted" into a new body, the initial people there having traveled by spaceship to set up the receiving stations and such. Anyway, our main character is sort of a private eye named Takeshi Kovacs (TOK-eh-shee KO-votch) who is drawn into intriguing situations. In the first book, it's pretty much a film noir story set in the future with cool technologies. It works, and is a good ride. In the second and third books, Kovacs winds up solving the riddle of the "Martians" whose technology we use to enable quick space travel. Broken Angels is the better of the second and third books in many ways, but both are good rides with lingering film noir characteristics. All in all, I recommend these books for a good ride. They aren't "literary," but are well done and fun. Mind you, I listened to these, and the reader was very good, which makes a big difference.

As visitors may have noticed, it had been a long time since the site had been updated. There were good reasons for that, but events have transpired that have enabled those of us who can to resume updates. Updates across the board will take some time, but we'll have a bit every week.

 

Huzzah!

Long hiatus - restart and maybe refocus, but more frequent posting.

OK, this isn't complete, but I'm getting way behind, so I'm posting what I have so far.

Airship to Orbit

The technology is disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication 2007/0205330, filed by Hubbard Aerospace, LLC, published on 6 September 2007 (it's attached to this post as a PDF, too). The premise here is that a semi-rigid dirigible type craft can be taken into orbit. The craft does not rely solely on lifting gases for lift, nor does it use conventional propeller-type drive, but uses a combination of lifting gas, lifting body shape, and turbojet engines that can draw air for combustion from reservoirs within the craft itself when outside air is too rarefied or simply unavailable.

Read more by clicking the title of the post.