{"id":4,"date":"2010-12-07T23:14:39","date_gmt":"2010-12-07T23:14:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/?p=4"},"modified":"2010-12-09T11:37:58","modified_gmt":"2010-12-09T11:37:58","slug":"errm-let-there-be-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/2010\/12\/07\/errm-let-there-be-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Errm&#8230; let there be light?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #993300\">In which I postulate a philosophical question\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993300\">\u2026to which the correct answer is, and will probably continue to be: <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993300\"><em><span style=\"color: #993300\">\u201cNah. More like a whole load of hot air\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Dark Star - let there be light\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/I9-Niv2Xh7w?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Those of you who used to hang about on <em><a href=\"http:\/\/network.nature.com\/blogs\">Nature Network<\/a><\/em>, where this blog previously <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/austinelliott\/\">had its home<\/a>, will know that there is some sort of a correlation (though I am not aware of a formal study\u2026. anyone know one?)\u00a0 between science geeks and sci-fi film buffs.<\/p>\n<p>Hence the inauguration here with a bit of vintage sci-fi.<\/p>\n<p>And the rather laboured allusion in the title is to whether scientists blogs to spread enlightenment, or simply to sound off a bit.<\/p>\n<p>The answer, of course, is almost always a bit of both &#8211; though around here you can probably expect more of the latter. \u00a0Like \u00a0a lot of bloggers, I don&#8217;t really have a thematic plan (let alone a scheme for global domination) . \u00a0I tend to blog about what&#8217;s on my mind. Indeed, when \u00a0I was trying to think up a bio for the new blog, I was half tempted to call it<\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #993300\">&#8220;A Trawl of Unfinished Ephemera&#8221;<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Now, a big chunk of the point of moving here from <em>NN<\/em>, at least for me, was to try and reach a bit more general readership &#8211; partly by having a more open comments policy than <em>NN<\/em> did, but that&#8217;s one for another time. People who read the old <em>NN<\/em> blog will know what sort of content and tone to expect here. But since, like I said, \u00a0I&#8217;m hoping for new readers, and since I am not nearly as well-known a blogger as  some of my fellow <a href=\"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/occams-typewriter\/\">OTs<\/a> &#8211; now now, \u00a0no <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Operating_Thetan\">scientology jokes<\/a>, please &#8211; I thought I would give any newbies some idea what you can expect from <em>Not Ranting<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>So what&#8217;s it going to be?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Looking back over the year that the blog has been running on <em>NN<\/em>, I see that I could classify the posts into roughly the following categories:<\/p>\n<p>Pseudoscience \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a023%<br \/>\nHistory of science \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a018%<br \/>\nScience policy \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 14%<br \/>\nNews &amp; events \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a014%<br \/>\nThe life scientific \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 9%<br \/>\nAnnoyances \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a09%<br \/>\nCommunicating science \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a05%<br \/>\nResearch \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 5%<br \/>\nScience fiction \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 5%<\/p>\n<p>So expect some pseudoscience (which leaks in from my other blogging), a good slice of history, some science policy, a bit of other miscellanea, and a general tone of low level grousing.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Enough of this navel-gazing. Tell us about the film!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Finally, lets get back to that excellent movie clip.<\/p>\n<p>As a last aside, like many a scientist (and science blogger) of <em>a certain age<\/em>, I remember the lunar landing programme of the late 60s and 70s as being one of the key things that sort of defined for me what <em>&#8220;science&#8221; <\/em>was. \u00a0But, again like a lot of kids, I was also an avid viewer of space, and science, fiction &#8211; <em>Lost in Space<\/em>, <em>Star Trek<\/em>, <em>Doctor Who, <\/em>and so on. So the blame for my scientific career lies with the film makers. They are the guilty men.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, for those that didn\u2019t recognise the source of the clip, it is from low-fi 70s sci-fi classic\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dark_Star_\"><em>Dark Star,<\/em><\/a> a favourite movie of my younger brother and me ever since we first saw it in our teenage years<sup>1<\/sup>.\u00a0<em>Dark Star<\/em> has been a bit of our joint history, one of those films we share lines from as private jokes. And I started up my\u00a0<em>NN<\/em> blog almost exactly a year ago with <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/austinelliott\/2009\/12\/18\/rip-dan-obannon\">a short piece about the film<\/a>, triggered by the news that screenwriter <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dan_O\">Dan\u00a0O&#8217;Bannon<\/a> (one half of the team that produced the film, along with director\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_Carpenter\">John Carpenter<\/a>) had just died, aged only 63.<\/p>\n<p>The running gag of\u00a0<em>Dark Star<\/em> is the one about &#8211; what if space travel turned out to be\u00a0<em>really, really REALLY boring?<\/em> With people stuck together for years, thoroughly fed up with one another&#8217;s company, eating monotonous food and doing monotonous things on a malfunctioning spaceship?<\/p>\n<p>Any resemblance to working in life in general, of course, is purely deliberate.<\/p>\n<p>For those too young to have ever caught\u00a0<em>Dark Star,<\/em> perhaps its most obvious descendant, at least on British\u00a0TV,\u00a0is the comedy series\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Red_Dwarf\"><em>Red Dwarf<\/em><\/a> (official website\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.reddwarf.co.uk\/news\/index.cfm\">here<\/a>) which seems to me to owe much of its &#8220;<em>Waiting for Godot<\/em> in space&#8221; premise to\u00a0<em>Dark Star.<\/em> Of course, Red Dwarf has other obvious antecedants in 70s sci-fi, including\u00a0<em>Alien<\/em> and another &#8220;space will drive you crazy&#8221; cult classic, the proto eco-movie\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Silent_Running\"><em>Silent Running.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the best known single sequence from\u00a0<em>Dark Star<\/em> is the end of the film, featuring the philosophical and talkative bomb (see\u00a0 above). However, you may get more of a flavour of the film overall from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=PdZ3tiTDyg0&amp;NR=1\">this short sequence.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve never seen\u00a0<em>Dark Star,<\/em> it is well worth digging out on\u00a0DVD\u00a0or video (do they still have those?) to see what 70s film-makers could do with a quirky vision, next to no money, improvised-on-a-shoestring special effects (by\u00a0O&#8217;Bannon) and an absurdist deadpan sense of humour. At least if the film-makers were talents like Carpenter and\u00a0O&#8217;Bannon.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>[1] Sadly, I really am that old. It crept up on me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In which I postulate a philosophical question\u2026 \u2026to which the correct answer is, and will probably continue to be: \u201cNah. More like a whole load of hot air\u201d Those of you who used to hang about on Nature Network, where &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/2010\/12\/07\/errm-let-there-be-light\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-procrastination","category-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}