Today is the Seventeenth Sunday After Pentacost & the Sunday of Second Sunday of Luke. It is the feast of Martyr Domnina with her daughters of Syria.
Today’s Epistle is Second Corinthians (6:16–7:1)
Today’s Gospel is The the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (6:31–36)
Highlights
As is typical for the end of the month, it has been a busy week at work. Wednesday was end of month and end of quarter. That means Wednesday’s volatility calibrations were more complex than a regular end of day. I also had a large project whose first major run was Friday. It was less than optimal, but not horrid, at least not my parts.
I came close to finishing up a new story whose working title is “The Trap”. It is science fiction horror in the same broad setting as ”The Visions of Cireb”. I am working towards having enough stories set in the growing Portuguese space empire to select the best for a collection of 6–8 stories whose length is 40,000 to 60,000 words.
Sharing
D4: So, I can finally see that conga line
I have long said the first thing I’m doing if I build, borrow, or beg a time machine the first thing I’m going to do is see a specific person’s face at a prior Frolicon. It involves a conga line of furries with a skunk on the end.
D6: At what point did ‘bread’ get a legal definition
Also known as “why should the tax code care what I bake.”
D8: There’s something back here that you left behind
Okay, so it is time crystals, not Time Passages, but they certainly don’t live in the past. Just another science story that any other year would have been Top of the Pops, but not in 2020.
D12: Don’t call me Neandertals
It turns out all the “badness” of the Y comes from archaic modern humans. Neandertals got it from us.
D20: Second version of Dragon 2 manned capsule
SpaceX is getting Rev. 1 in orbit before Boeing’s Starliner gets a crewed flight.
Book of the Week
The week’s book is The Last Crusade: The Epic Voyages of Vasco da Gama. It is a very complete account of the voyages which culminated in the discovery of the all sea route from western Europe to India via the Cape of Good Hope. It was the great achievement leading to the Portuguese empire. It also happened six years after one Christopher Columbus failed to find such an all sea route by sailing straight west.
Part of the books thesis is the desire to find an all sea route was driving by increasing hostilities between the Islamic Middle East and Europe. By breaking the Islamic stranglehold on trade between Europe in the west and India and China in the east, da Gama delivered a blow to the economic power of the still growing Ottoman Empire, which saw itself as the logical successor of the Roman Empire much as Islam was the logical successor of Christianity.
With the Neo-Portuguese Empire of the “Beyond the Verge” setting inspired by explorations initiated by Prince Henry the Navigator, which da Gama’s expeditions were brought to their climax, the book is an excellent one to be reading while working in the Verge universe. Given my inspiration is very later, Americanized versions of Henry’s achievements, I’m hoping to get a touch of history wedged in the part of my subconscious writing the tales.
Song of the Week
It’s October and that means digging into songs from my days hosting Lessons in Dark Etiquette. The place to start is the beginning with Bauhaus’s iconic song. This live rendition at Coachella is worth watching for Peter Murphy’s entrance.
Video of the Week
I saw Showgirls in the theather, alghouth not by my choice. Like every other man in the theater, I was there with a date/spouse. We all looked at each other with that “this was her idea” look.
I read Sontag’s “In Defense of Camp” as an essay in the Bradbury Challenge.
I never thought to connect them, but this is one of the best discussions of either I have heard.
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