I came back with the convention cold, so I have been using up Kleenex and sleeping a lot; and then Norton pitched a fit and wanted to be reinstalled. So after Jane bravely battled Norton to a standstill, I have my computer back.
I’m still a bit under the weather, but I did go out for a lovely FREE Swinging Doors steak dinner (they do this for birthdays!) and well, the cat bite—Shu, the rascal resented being grabbed after the really sketchy hotel room in Butte, which he swears was last occupied by a werewolf…he (Shu, that is) nailed my arm in the dark as I was trying to extricate him from the footwell of the car as we were urgently trying to get underway to make the eclipse…which was glorious! More on that later! The following day, I did get medical treatment, which put me on doxycycline, which means NO dairy, no eggs, milk, cheese (half my normal diet) and NO sunshine while taking it. But it’s healing well, mostly: I just have these vampire marks. And Shu was very sorry. He spent two days trying to suck up to me before I had to part company to go off to the con and leave Jane in charge of the cats. Spent a lovely while with Ready, ReadyGuy, Bret and his very nice friend, and Serge and Sue, et al, and ran into Vic Milan, Steve Donaldson, and other longtime writer associates; George (RR) wasn’t there—toured after worldcon and is exhausted; but nice time had by all. I was still very glad to get back to Jane (the con hotel didn’t have pets) and head home—with kitchen remodel pending; and we stopped by Mesa Verde, saw many things worth coming back to check out, and made it home past a hotel fire in Kellogg ID and all sorts of smoke, some 28 separate fires in our area, but we’re well, and the air is only slightly bad…
I am concerned for you all down south, and was following the story such as I could in the hotel, bad, bad situation, and I hope all of you are safe, dry, and well.
Happy belated birthday. If it wasn’t for the free food, and perhaps presents, I would say my view of birthdays should prevail. Birthdays…after the first 40, the novelty wears off.
Glad you had a good time at the con. (Great name, by the way)
Happy birthday, and Shu should be nice to you, after that.
(Jewel loved to “disembowel” my arm, but somehow, for all the ferocity displayed, she never drew blood – and there was a lot of visible attack: ears back, eyes narrowed, front paws holding on with extended claws….)
Poor lad was just spooked. Bengal, about 7 or so generations out of the wilds of Asia, and crossed with a domestic, so he’s real confused. I don’t know what was staying in that room once upon a time—guesses range all the way to half-wolf, which is not impossible in this region—but he was ‘on’ all night, and then when we put him in the car, none of us with much sleep at all, and he hid under the seat—well, I knew I was taking a chance when I reached down to extract him, but I had to do it with the car door shut, it being dark outside, and no way on earth to catch him if he got out of control. I can say I then had absolute control of his whereabouts…ow. But he was duly sorry. We also discovered our hothouse flower has been freezing in the AC, which is really active down on the floor where he likes to be. We corrected that on the way back and had a much happier kitty.
Happy Birthday, best wishes for health, love and prosperity this year!
Best birthday wishes, definitely; and Shu _should_ be most contrite! We would love to hear about your eclipse escapades and the con. We saw the eclipse from Dubois, Montana, and spent the 5 days around it in Yellowstone. Regrettably we saw neither bear nor moose, but plenty elk and BISON, including one that basically came up to the car, “Hey, how’ya doin’?” The entire eclipse trip should have its own essay, this is the link to our trip photo gallery: jediknight.com/gallery3 — the title is Wyomingpalooza.
Mesa Verde is worth its own trip; I love that part of the country. You can’t throw a rock without hitting a national park!
Darnit! Dubois, Wyoming. Found it after the edit time expired. D’oh!
I really enjoyed your comments on the panels I managed to make it to at Bubonicon. Thank you so much for coming!
Happy Birthday, CJ! — Glad you’re doing better, and possibly Shu will have learned his lesson. A “misfire” is excusable. My two are as goofy as ever.
LOL, well, if you had been bitten by a werewolf…I’m sure your writing would have more bite to it! ( ::groans:: ) Whatever / whoever was there that set off Shu, at least you know he remains an alert guard cat as usual. 🙂 … And werewolves in space (possibly?) haven’t been done before. Though if you or Patty wanted to give ’em a try, hey, go for it! Could be a howl…. (I’ll stop now.)
Doing OK here, and much appreciate the concern for myself and other fans around the TX/LA coast and inland. Sunshine again today. I was very fortunate, though I don’t have any idea yet about my storage space. Water’s gone down some in parts of the city, but conditions are still bad many places. The US mail is going through here, but not package deliveries yet. (Items I’d ordered, overly optimistic, Amazon Pantry etc., are awaiting delivery but have now made it closer into town. (Nothing perishable, and if anything’s lost, I won’t be too surprised.) ) I’m very much hoping to get to the store Mon./Tue., now down to tea and caned milk, out of juice or fresh milk. Mostly good on other things, good on canned food, low on frozen stuff. My power didn’t go out fully, my apt. complex didn’t flood, so I’m fine. — Others in town lost everything. I’ve seen coverage of areas I know well, including near where I grew up. Eek. But people will begin recovery, and not all of town was devastated, unlike in Ike, so…well, it’s still bad for most of town.
Goals for next week include a grocery run and to check out my storage space, to see how it did.Hoping it’s not too bad, but telling myself even if the storage space is a total loss, that’s still way better than others have faced, and better than the tree damage I had during Allison.
— I’ve now been in my new apt. over 6 months! It’s hard to believe it’s been so long.
— Very much looking forward to the upcoming Convergence / Emergence and Alliance Rising and its sequel when that’s done, and the A/U history piece.
Do you have any idea on how far out Alliance Rising is from publication? I think you’d said it’s just gone out for its first pass from the editor at your publisher, and so I’d presume it may be a year or so out before publication, with the second book still being drafted?
Have a VERY relaxing weekend, and have na Shu swab the decks, peel Anuurn potatoes (or something) and clean the air filters against Dinner. Possibly have him sit a few watches in lower deck ops, minus the voyage rings, in crew rough blue breeches, to get the point across? On the other hand, he did think he was guarding the co-captains, so, ::shrugs:: . One is not wholly displeased with the young imp. A certain feisty spirit’s a good thing in a hani, crewwoman or crewman. (Note: Auto-incorrect does not understand the concept of “crewwoman” and really should be educated. But neither does it know what a starship is. Poor pre-space auto-incorrect, so provincial and insular….)
We much appreciate you and Jane and the two feline companions. Take care!
AR isn’t turned in yet. I think it’s time (when I shake this crud) to go over Jane’s last pass, and then we’ll turn it in.
Monday I’m turning in the galley corrections on Emergence. Or is it the other one?
given that it’s Emergence that’s open for pre-orders, it must be “the other one”.
As pre-ordering is going on for Emergence, it must be “the other one”.
I tell ya, living 5 miles downwind from a forest fire is not so high on the ‘fun’ scale. A few days with the bug-out zone (evacuation level 3) line literally 200 feet from my back door were enough, thankfully they’ve been able to get some lines in and cool the fire edge near town enough to let people get back into homes. Most of the new evacuation areas are just ‘get ready'(level 2). Smoke wasn’t bad until just the past few days, but its ‘unhealthy’ to ‘hazardous’ at the moment.
BCG, we definitely would have taken your rain if you guys could have figured out how to ship it…
I hear you. I’ve had fires within 5 miles, and the smoke level is amazing (they were close enough we could see flames, while waiting for our perfectly normal commuter train).
Shoot, there’s still plenty of water, if only we could ship it to you. One o’ them-there flying saucers with a teacup cargo bay oughta do it…. — Really, two dams upstream from Houston are estimated to be releasing water for the next 15 days. I’m sure folks here would be happy to send water where it’s needed. (Hmm, giant airship dirigible? Big airliner? Supersized transport helicopter? Low orbit shuttle lander? All that high-tech freight transport, you’d think they’d have a way to airlift water in and out en masse. For forest fires, flood relief, irrigation, I realize it’s way more complex than that, but hmm, in principle….)
Sigh, yeah, they have a big water bomber plane, but they can’t use it in our mountains. Something about a 747 not being able to get close enough AND dodge mountains at the same time.
Many happy returns of the birthday anniversary, CJ — any day you get to have a free steak is a good day!
A lot of my maternal relations live in the Houston area. One (Pearland) had a flooded first floor and another (Rosharon, 2 miles from the Brazos) had all her pasturage flooded and may lose some of her cattle. That was the worst we know of. We haven’t heard from the one that lives in Clute, which is down past Alvin. Our family was really, really lucky. So many families weren’t so lucky. We’re 600 miles NW of the Houston area up at the square bit at the top and we had rain off it, too.
Wished I could have gotten to the con but there was no way. Glad you were able to go and have fun. I’m so glad you and Jane are hiring out the lion’s share of the work on your kitchen remodel. Take it easy and take care of yourselves.
All of you in harm’s way, whether from fire or flood—(what a year!)—do take care, remember to take your insurance papers and titles if you have to evacuate!—and just play it safe. The rest of us are wishing you the best!
Yes indeed. We have a ‘bug-out box’, frequently updated, in case we have to leave in an extreme hurry, which contains (in addition to various things that would make life nicer in case we need to evacuate, like toothbrushes and aspirin) our most recent insurance papers. Car titles are in folders we can grab at a moment’s notice. As long as the cats cooperate, we can be loaded and gone from the house within 20 minutes, helpful in case of locally generated tsunami.
Welcome back and happy belated birthday.
My comments seem to be disappearing into the ether….
I vote you congrats for your annual victory as well!
I had a very odd dream. I drempt that the moon had drastically changed its orbit and infallen somewhat. I found this frightening and upsetting, but no one else did. I then started to try and figure out whether this new orbit, which crossed the arctic circle and went some 45 degrees south of the equator would leave some places with no view of the moon at all. I concluded that it would be visible everywhere, just not every month. Could one of you who actually knows something of solar mechanics out there help? First, would this sudden change be such a disaster as I feared? Second, am I right about the lunar view, and what effect might an intermittent moon have on a society which grew under it?
Being closer, the tides would be larger. Being tipped 45° to the equator would mean who got the highest tides would shift throughout the month. These would become “chaotic”–not really, still predictable, but very variable. Bad news for coastal habitations and shipping. Because the Earth is pear-shaped, the tidal pull would also change Earth’s 23.5° tip to the ecliptic, over time. Seasons would change. That might cause the magnetic field to become less stable, let through more Solar energetic particles.
Oops, time to change my costume!
Conveniently, I’m just 47mi north of 45°N, but let’s not quibble.
Let’s clarify your geometry: draw a circle, horizontal line for equator, NS poles top and bottom. Draw 45° lines off equator from the center of the “Earth” to the “surface” north and south. Draw a perpendicular line to 45°N, tangent at the suface. That represents my horizon line. Polaris is at 45° to my northern horizon. As near as matters for stargazing, my southern horizon parallels 45°S. Extend the 45°S line out (distance to Moon divided by radius of Earth according to Google) 240,000/4,000=60 times the diameter of your circle and put a tiny circle there for the “Moon”. (Extended to 2 dimensions, that makes what you postulated for the orbital plane.) Its center is still 4,000mi below my horizon line–invisible to me (the radius of Moon is only 1,000mi). But draw a tangent from the Moon to the surface of the Earth, that’s where one could see its center sitting semicircular on the horizon. That’d be a bit south of me. (Seems likely it would disappear for me 47mi north at the southern “node” for a couple days, but I could see it at its northern node.) You want to know what that latitude is.
You now have a skinny triangle. One side is the radius of the Earth. The adjacent side is the distance to the Moon. It’s been a loooong time since high-school geometry, but that’s all you need to calculate that subtended angle. (Get the exact distances, 3959.xxx mi and 238,9xx mi.) Carry the numbers out to enough significant digits! And be wary of the “Sine theta equals theta for small values of theta” approximation assumption.) Subtract 45 for the angle of the orbital plane to the equator. That gives you A(nta)rctic Circle like lines between which the Moon is awlays visible, and beyond which it will disappear from time to time.
Never ask an Aspie a question unless you REALLY want an answer, eh? ; – )
I’m glad I’m not the only one who cares to think about such things. Now we need to add in the rotation of the Earth, the revolution of the Moon, about the Earth/Moon rotational axis about the Sun. I think there will be places where, on occasion, only the dark side of the Moon will be observable in some months, giving the impression that it did not show up this month?
The moon’s orbit is already inclined WRT the ecliptic. You’re just hypothesizing more.
I don’t see how a moon that big, that close isn’t “tidally locked”, so no, I don’t think the “Dark Side of the Moon” would ever be visible.
The question is, how does it get that way? If you’re thinking of something happening to the current Earth-Moon system that would cause it, it’d take something large (an interstellar planet(oid) ejected from somewhere) passing through the system, and I think it’s likely the consequences of THAT would be far more, e.g. tipping the Earth’s axis too? Throwing one of us out of the Solar System altogether?
We have an example of that already in the Solar System with Uranus spinning laying down, and Pluto in a crossing, elliptical, inclined orbit. How that happened is still a “matter of interest”.
Models suggest the current Solar System arrangement couldn’t/wouldn’t have happened “de novo”. One must consider “resonances” and the relative masses of the planets, i.e. planets initially form at idiosyncratic places depending on the mass distribution inconsistencies of the dust cloud, then as they congeal, resonances begin to “adjust” the orbits. Of everything, hence the “heavy bombardment” period.
Could the hypothetical collision that formed the Earth-Moon pair have actually put the Moon in the orbit you hypothesize? Don’t know why not, if the shot was just right. And it may well be possible that it wouldn’t have disturbed our orbit in the Solar System.
So,I think you should be more specific about WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, and HOW things happened or evolved. The questions you ask result from that, not the other way ’round. The thing is, not everything imaginable is possible; not in the real Universe with the real Laws of Physics.
Oh, yes, I didn’t mention, “libration” of the moon causes little bits of the “dark side” to be visible at the edges even now.
In the dream? The newscaster said that the moon appeared to be missing around midnight. At 2AM, he laughed and said not to worry, as it had simply changed its orbit somewhat and it took them a while to find it, since they were looking in the wrong place.
That’s part of what I found disturbing, that they had mislaid the moon, and then laughed about it.
Gotta come up with a plausible explanation for that! There ain’t one, barring a “visitor” pulling on it gravitationally.
Ooh, ooh, I know! “FAKE NEWS”!
On further thought, I was probably unclear. The moon rotates at close to the same rate that it revolves. This leaves one side constantly facing the sun. When we rotate so that moonrise is at or near the same time that sunset happens, we have a full moon. When moonrise and sunrise coincide, we have the dark of the moon. The question in my mind is not whether the moon would not be visible on some parts of Earth’s surface, but whether all of its phases would be visible everywhere every month.
Oops, you slipped up there. One side constantly faces the Earth, not the Sun. When moonrise and sunrise coincide (if there’s not an eclipse!) then the sunlight is on the opposite side of the moon from what we see–what has sometimes incorrectly been called “the dark side of the moon”–but we’re still seeing the same side of the moon. You can verify this with a telescope by looking at the new crescent moon, when the rest of the moon can be barely made out from “Earthshine”(!), a double reflection.
Now, the answer to your question is no, when the Winter Solstice is coincident with the Moon being at the most northerly point of its orbit, the moon itself is invisible from lets say anywhere north of 71°42’N, i.e. the 66°33′ the Arctic Circle (itself 90° minus the 23°26′ of the Earth’s inclination to the ecliptic) plus the Moon’s 5°9′ orbital tilt to the ecliptic. And that’s when the Moon is at it’s maximum northern point of its orbit. When the Moon is at the southernmost point, that would be 66°33′ MINUS 5°9′, or 61°24′.
In practical terms, Barrow, AK is at 71°17’N, so it can just barely see the moon on SOME winter solstices, when the Moon is at its “Ascending Node”, i.e. northernmost point, even if it can’t see the Sun. Thule, Greenland, at 77°28’N can never see the Moon at winter solstices.
Got that? ; – ) I think I do, hope I do. And that’s just the simplified best/edge cases. When you ask “Ever?” The Moon precesses every 18.6 years, the Earth wobbles, it gets really complicated for any particular point in time.
You said, “all of its phases would be visible everywhere every month.” If one cannot see the Moon at all, as one cannot from Thule on the Winter Solstice, (I hope I explained why not, but I could take another try) and given how far North it is that surely lasts for at least a week (I expect more like a month), then that’s somewhere where all of the phases are NOT visible every month.
The Moon’s orbital plane is too close to the ecliptic as is. If you want to put it off at 45°, then even from the North Pole on the Winter Solstice, the Moon should be visible.
Thank you!
Aside: Is there any spot on Earth currently where people cannot see the Moon?
I read through about half of Paul’s figures and will read the rest later. Tommie, that’s a very interesting idea. I recall reading we’re theoretically overdue for a shift in Earth’s magnetic poles. And that reminds me that Seeking North involved some event either with that planet’s sun or the planet itself or a meteor or comet…and I really enjoyed Seeking North, and wish the three authors would have a writers’ conference and maybe finish or redraft it.
Last night, I rented and watched Hidden Figures, and I’m still mulling over it. When I was taking computer science classes (1980’s), we did (of course) hear about Commodore Grace Hopper and Fortran and the famous “bug in the program.” But I never had heard of the women (black or otherwise) who worked at NASA as mathematicians, scientists, engineers, and programmers, for the early space program. (I did of course assume there were women technicians in the 70’s and onward, and in the 90’s, I’d heard that Nichelle Nichols was a spokeswoman recruiting women (and women of color) for NASA.) To learn there were 30-some black women working as technicians and “(human) computers” and then programmers — wow. This was fantastic. I will be buying the book and the movie. — And when I went, computer science (both HW and SW) had far fewer women students and profs. It has improved somewhat since then, both out in the field and in students, but it’s still considerably lower, female to male. Yet there’s nothing particularly male or female about science/technical, particularly programming. There are apparently some tendencies for males to think in certain spatial and analytical terms, but there are even so, plenty of females who can too. So women are still not represented according to innate, natural abilities, either studying or working in the real world with programming. (But today, it has improved a lot.) I would expect that since computer use and study has become so integral, that over time, it would be just as common for women and girls to study programming and work in it professionally, as much or more so than in math or physics, say; and I note that’s more common now than it used to be.
My mom loved math, and said she’d considered it, but at the time (50’s when she went to college) a woman actually getting a job in math and technical was very, very rare. She took accounting classes, remained an English major, and went on to exec. secretary work, among other jobs, before eventually starting her art shop and professional art career, which was her true love. I think she would’ve loved the movie. It gives me a much better idea of how professional and educated women were treated back then, and of the insane racial bias both before the Civil Rights Act and after, during the time when I was a kid in school in the 70’s and early 80’s. Of course, I do know from my own life experience how that still affects things, but my perspective is from the whiter shade of pale, in a city that has a very diverge makeup with about half the population minorities. (So I know I’m not immune to its effects.) — And I’ve seen prejudice up close and personal in real life and online, including a couple of recent hate-speech YouTube videos around Hurricane Harvey, trying to blame both my city’s mayor and the former president, as black / non-white men, for, well, basically for existing. (I’m still mulling over how to report the two videos, but I intend to. They weasel around it, but it’s pretty plainly racist.)
Anyway, I was very impressed by the movie and it says volumes.
“Aside: Is there any spot on Earth currently where people cannot see the Moon?”
Never ever? As the moon’s inclination to ecliptic is only about 5°, that’s almost like asking if there’s anywhere that has never seen the Sun. So, no, I don’t believe there is, with one fairly obvious caveat. As the Earth’s axial tilt is 23.5°, there are places on Earth that cannot see the Sun for months on end, so that would apply to the Moon as well. ; – )
(No, lets not wonder about the north side of a very steep mountain in the far Northern Hemisphere, or ditto south. Nor the Ocean’s abyssal plains. Just the typical cases, eh?)
BTW, CJ, certain large knitted projects took a back seat during the hot weather, but I have a ball and a half (of 8 total) to go on yours and three balls to go on Jane’s. Haven’t forgotten you. I expect to be finished with both by the end of the month.
September 25th, I get to find out whether or not I spend the next six months having chemotherapy. Tumor markers are holding steady, but solid disease is getting out of hand. If I have 50% increase in lymphoma size since May, then chemo is on. I take the head, neck and trunk CT scan on 9/11 (!) (in the am) as well as a jaw scan to see if the bone graft took (same day in pm) and I get to have a tooth implant, which I hope, because I miss that molar!
Hope you had a happy birthday (despite your illness)! 🎂🎈🎉