The Cambias Digression

Notes and thoughts on everything from what I had for breakfast to the fate of the Universe.

  • PhilCon 2020 Goes Virtual

    This year's PhilCon — the venerable Philadelphia-era science fiction con now in its 84th year — is going to be all-online. On the plus side that means no New Jersey traffic and mall food; on the minus side it means no spontaneous conversations in the hotel lobby, no room parties, and no basic human contact.…

    jamescambias

    , , , , ,

  • Ancient Alien Astronauts

    When does speculative science cross the invisible line and become pseudoscience? That's a topic I grapple with when writing science fiction, and one which crops up whenever scientists air some of their wilder theories. For example, Dr. James Benford recently published a paper on searching for alien "technosignatures" on Near-Earth Objects in our own Solar…

    jamescambias

  • The Godel Operation Is Coming!

    The Godel Operation, the first full-length tale of the Billion Worlds, is on the Baen release schedule for May 2021. I'm already working on a second Billion Worlds novel and a short story.  Best of all, we have cover art! Watch this space for new developments as the release date gets closer.

    jamescambias

  • Twenty Years!

    Today marks a significant anniversary. Twenty years ago, on October 31, 2000, the first crew launched to the International Space Station. Station crews are called "Expeditions," so Expedition 1 began on that date. We're currently on Expedition 64, with three in the pipeline and many more planned. The Expeditions overlap, so that the new crew…

    jamescambias

    , ,

  • Snow

    It's snowing outside as I write. Feh. The leaves aren't all off the trees yet. I was waiting for all of them to fall before raking. Now there's a layer of wet unraked leaves under the snow. Feh.

    jamescambias

  • The Need For Long Campaigns

    Here's an interesting — and, I think, important — brief essay on the value of long things. Listening to long pieces of music, reading long books, and (for us nerds) playing long roleplaying campaigns. It's by David McGrogan, better known as "Noisms," the somewhat mysterious author of the amazing Yoon-Suin game setting.  Possibly revealing confession:…

    jamescambias

    ,

  • Notes on the Invisible Man

    On Friday evenings my wife and I have a regular Movie Night. We've been doing it ever since it became impossible to go out to a real movie theater, and I expect we'll continue after (if) they re-open. To avoid conflicts over what to watch — or, worse yet, an "Abilene Paradox" situation where in…

    jamescambias

    ,

  • Great Filters, Part 9: Odds and Ends

    Well, I think I've come to the end of my series on the Great Filters and the Fermi Paradox. There are a few bits which didn't quite fit into any of the earlier posts. So here they are, in more or less random order. Have We Looked? First, there's the issue of what Michael Hart…

    jamescambias

  • Great Filters, Part 8: Space Filters

    Wow, I've been doing this for two months and am not done yet. Now I know how Proust must have felt. Assuming Proust was writing blog posts about the Fermi Paradox, of course. So far I've looked at all the Great Filters which lie in our past — barriers to the evolution of life, barriers…

    jamescambias

  • A Prediction

    If you read this article — "The Bias that Divides Us," by Keith Stanovich — you will nod sagely about the cognitive bias it describes. And then you will spend ten or fifteen minutes reassuring yourself that you aren't affected by it.

    jamescambias

The Worldbuilding Index