From Ello

Watched the first half of the first episode of Ascension last night. The premise is that, in the mid sixties, America launched an interstellar starship based on Orion technology in total secret to the stars, and now, 51 years later, their frozen-in-amber society is beginning to unravel. Orion worked by shooting nuclear bombs out the back, and plus such a large ship would be easily seen being built in orbit, not to mention lighting up the skies. 51 years would barely get it out of the solar system, still hundreds or thousands of years from getting to the nearest stars, none of which had been confirmed as having planets in the 60s. It wasn’t until the 80s that we could even confirm other stars even had planets. Plus apparently they have gravity control? The ship interior doesn’t look like there’s any support for acceleration or maneuvering? A puzzling plot line back on present-day Earth? ...

[gallery ids=“11194,11193,11192,11191,11190,11189,11188,11187”] It’s #Darsana today! Ingress players from all over the northeast are gathering today in Hartford for the Darsana anomaly. I don’t know the storyline – I haven’t played much Ingress since work transferred me to a location without many nearby portals – but there was no way I was going to miss this event in Hartford. And besides, end of next week, I’m transferred back to Hartford so Ingress will be back on for me in 2015. ...

Finished William Gibson’s “The Peripheral”. A barely employed woman from a rural near future subs for her brother as a game beta tester and sees a gruesome murder in the game which seems set in a London of the far future. But, it’s not a game, the death is real, she’s the only one who knows, and her knowledge puts two continua at risk. To say any more would be to spoil the threads of confusion Gibson carefully sows in the first hundred pages, which tell two stories in settings that appear at turns familiar and utterly strange before finally meeting via the peculiar agency of the titular peripheral. ...