Gypsum is also mentioned. Yes, gypsum is present in some caves and can form attractive crystalline formations (gypsum flowers and helictites), and you may not need life to do it. You can also get stalactites (of a sort) in lava caves where molten rock has dripped from the roof. These I could believe on Ceres, but the implication is that the stalactites were of the limestone type.
Frank Coulter
Pauanui Beach
New Zealand
P.S. I enjoyed Joe Schembrie's story, though the shootout at the end was a bit like the good cowboys and the bad cowboys fighting over the gold....
* * * *
Dr. Schmidt:
I was shocked to read in the July/August story “Loki's Realm” that, in the year 2272, a Scot would ask for “Tea. Earl Grey with a bit of cream and sugar...”
Surely times will not change to such a degree!
An “Englishman” would never take cream with his tea and certainly not with Earl Grey.
Even Jean-Luc Picard never committed such a heresy.
Peter Rodgers
Danesmoor
Chesterfield
Derbyshire
England
* * * *
Are you sure they wouldn't change that much? Look at the last 265 years! Besides, do all Englishmen have identical tastes? And I've heard Scots object vehemently when referred to as “Englishmen"....
* * * *
Stan,
Your editorial “Adapting” hit the nail on the head. Since population growth is the prime factor in human-caused global warming, isn't it time to proclaim that the Pope's stand on birth control is immoral?
Al Westerfield
Crossville, TN
* * * *
Dr. Schmidt,
What a terrific essay by Jeffery Kooistra ("The Supplemental View") in the September 2007 issue. I am both a scientist (Ph.D. Chemical Engineering) and a “born again” Christian. I have never felt any conflict between my science and my faith, but I have never been able to satisfactorily explain why this is possible. Dr. Kooistra has done this most elegantly. Thank you for publishing this.
Don Hirsch
West Boothbay Harbor, ME
* * * *
Dear Mr. Schmidt,
I am a subscriber in long standing (many decades) and in all that time I have never found an issue so poor that I could not read it. I have found stories I did not like and either read them to expand my horizons or passed on them, as per my tolerance level. However, that issue with the silly story and article using archaic speech and spelling, with the absurd plot did me in. It might have been a cute gimmick to mix things up a bit, but it was poorly written. And that silly piece by Schroeder! The first was tolerable, but the second was ridiculous—the characters, plotting and setting were not only unbelievable, but mutated from the first piece. Perhaps there are just fewer good stories now—fewer submissions by the Vajra's, Bechtel's, and Asaro's.
Now to Kooistra's column: I am pleased that he had an education that reconciled all the differences between religion and science. Just as I was pleased to hear how his father was a combination of Einstein, Galileo, and Paul Bunyan—I am quite sure there are millions of children who feel the same about their fathers. They just do not have the opportunity to publish their enhanced memories in a magazine. I must take exception, however, with his view that religion does not conflict with science. I have many friends, acquaintances and colleagues who were raised in religious homes. With few exceptions, they object to many aspects of science—not due to knowledge of either their religion or of science, but on principle. They have been told that (insert scientific conclusion or theory here) is wrong and so object to it, because their particular religion has told them to do so. One colleague objected to evolution because “there are still monkeys"; another to astronomy, because there is no room for Heaven. These are people who are intelligent and educated, but have been blinded in their upbringing—who was it who said, “Give a child until he is five and he is mine for life?” In line with such work, I recently read a few selections from a book that was, essentially, a Catholic's FAQ for modern times: Under the section regarding the recent problems of their priesthood caught abusing children, it stated that priests are never wrong or bad, and that anyone saying so is purely malicious. Now I know where I stand...
In conclusion, please vet your stories better. I know that you must hear the cry “it was better in the old days” frequently, but the concerns I mention are valid. I believe that you have let a few poorly chosen pieces slip in, as the rest of the last issue was very good.
Regards,
Dan Davies
* * * *
(1) I'm sorry you didn't like the pieces you complain about, but many other readers liked those same pieces very much. Tastes differ; nobody likes everything, and nothing pleases everybody. And those with different tastes than yours or mine are not necessarily inferior or “wrong."
(2) Yes, I do hear “it was better in the old days” fairly often, and those cries usually follow certain patterns (which I discussed in my June 1990 editorial, “The Oldtimer Effect").
* * * *
Dear Stan Schmidt,
Edward Lerner's article about RFIDs led me to recall a lively discussion I had with the socially conscious CEO of a technology company I worked with several years ago. The issue was how to target low-cost RFID development while taking positive stances on sustainable development and related societal issues. Not a simple task. Though I like the technology, in our discussion I took the position that even more important than the slippery slope of privacy erosion, presented nicely by Lerner, is an expected epidemic of Radio Frequency Induced Unemployment (RFIU) accompanying widespread RFID deployment.
US businesses have for years been off-shoring manufacturing jobs, in recent times even in “soft” product-generating professions such as computer programming and patent drafting. What remains domestic is increasingly (euphemistically) called a “service economy.” Enter RFID, an exciting and probably inevitable technology promising to increase efficiency in many tasks, but arriving with the potential to eliminate a great many of these service-type jobs, with no obvious replacements. When the cost of RFID or functionally similar labeling finally comes down to resemble that of bar coding, businesses will need far fewer salespeople, checkout clerks, stockroom workers, package and mail handlers, security personnel, associated managers, and several other types of employees who currently help make the world go ‘round. The number of jobs that could flash evanesce in this manner is staggering. As one simple example, consider 34,000 supermarkets in the US each suddenly needing four or five fewer employees to work checkout counters or to find that mis-shelved can of beans.
Some stockholders may rejoice, but these jobs currently comprise a major route by which young people enter our economy, semi-retirees continue to be and feel productive, the marginally employable manage to get by, and families are able to sustain second incomes without compromising childcare. On the bright side, we can see this particular technological engine steaming at us from a decent distance along the track, and I believe we may have time to do more than hang out on the rails and watch what happens as it gains speed. RFID is a fascinating technology with great potential, and Lerner is right about this being fertile ground for speculative fiction. I'm looking forward to reading about the next few decades of social evolution in the next year or two of Analog.
Steve Bittenson
Bedford, MAn
* * * *
“Whenever you accept our views, we shall be in full agreement with you."—Moshe Dayan
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[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Reader's Department: 2007 INDEX
Here is the Index to 2007, Analog's Volume 127. Entries are arranged alphabetically by author, with month and page. When the author's name and/or part of the entry's title is omitted, it is the same as that of the previous entry. Multiple entries by the same author are listed alphabetically according to the story/article title. Collaborations are listed under all authors with cross references. Unless otherwise noted, each entry is identified as an Alternate View (av), editorial (ed), fact article (fa), guest editorial (ge), novella (na), novelette (nt), poem (pm), Probability Zero (pz), serial (ser), special feature (sf), or short story (ss).
Bartell, David—
Misquoting The Moon (ss) March 72
Bechtel, Amy—
A Time For Lawsuits (nt) July/Aug 74
Trucks (ss) March 67
Burns, Stephen L.—
The Face of Hate (ss) Jan/Feb 48
Burstein, Michael A.—(with Robert Greenberger)
Things That Aren't (nt) April 74
* * * *
Carter, Scott William—
Father Hagerman's Dog (ss) June 54
Castle, Sarah K.—
Kukulkan (nt) Dec 38
Chase, Robert R.—
“Domo Arigato,” Says Mr. Roboto (ss) Dec 80
Cocks, Franklin—
Shielding a Polar Lunar Base (fa) Jan/Feb 40
Cramer, John G.—
“Extrasolar Planets and
Occult Astronomy” (av) March 83
“The Universe as Watermelon” (av) May 82
“Cooling Off Global Warming
From Space” (av) July/Aug 121
“Real Nuclear Fusion on a Tabletop” (av) Oct 70
“The Experimental Evidence
Against Objective Reality” (av) Dec 66
Creek, Dave—
Some Distant Shore (na) Sept 8
* * * *
Flynn, Michael F.—
De Revolutione Scientiarum
in ‘Media Tempestas’ (fa) July/Aug 40
Quaestiones Super Caelo
et Mundo (nt) July/Aug 10
Frederick, Carl—
Double Helix, Downward Gyre (nt) Jan/Feb 134
A Higher Level of Misunderstanding (ss) May 86
Yearning for the White Avenger (ss) November 76
A Zoo in the Jungle (ss) June 78
* * * *
Gillett, Stephen L.—
Nanotech Rocket Fuel (fa) Oct 42
Toward a Not-Just-Diamond Age (fa) March 54
Goldman, David W.—
Radical Acceptance (ss) Jan/Feb 58
Reunion (na) Dec 94
Goodloe, Lee—
Damned if You Do (na) May 8
Gordon, R. Emrys—
Exposure Therapy (ss) Jan/Feb 88
Greenberger, Robert—(with Michael A. Burstein)
Things That Aren't (nt) April 74
* * * *
Hatch, Daniel—
An Angelheaded Hipster Escapes (na) Oct 10
Hemry, John G.—
As You Know, Bob (ss) April 54
Do No Harm (ss) July/Aug 138
These Are The Times (nt) Nov 56
Hendrix, Howard V.—
Palimpsest (ss) Sept 78
Honken, Henry—
I Couldn't Read You, E.T. (fa) May 41
* * * *
Johnson, C. W.—
Icarus Beach (nt) Dec 8
Political Science (ss) July/Aug 130
* * * *
Kasman, Alex—
On The Quantum Theoretic Implications of
Newton's Alchemy (ss) Oct 74
Kirkland, Kyle—
The Test (pz) July/Aug 124
Kooistra, Jeffery D.—
“Imagination” (av) Jan/Feb 72
“Baseball and Hurricanes” (av) April 70
“Robert Heinlein Turns 100” (av) June 89
“The Supplemental View” (av) Sept 72
“Drilling to the Golden Age” Nov 92
* * * *
Landis, Geoffrey A.—
A City Forged of Steel (pm) December 70
Vectoring (pz) June 92
Lerner, Edward M.—
Beyond This Point Be RFIDs (fa) Sept 44
Ligon, Tom—
El Dorado (nt) Oct 84
Longyear, Barry B.—
The Hangingstone Rat (nt) Oct 106
Murder in Parliament Street (na) Nov 8
Lovett, Richard A.—
After Gas: Are We Ready
for the End of Oil? (fa) Jan/Feb 124
Bambi Steaks (na) May 62
Biolog: Ekaterina Sedia (sf) Oct 63
Biolog: E. Mark Mitchell (sf) Sept 70
Biolog: Joe Schembrie (sf) July/Aug 120
Cryovolcanoes, Swiss Cheese, and
the Walnut Moon (fa) June 40
How to Write Something You Don't
Know Anything About (sf) Jan/Feb 99
The Ice Age That Wasn't (fa) April 44
The Last of the Weathermen (ss) July/Aug 62
A Plutoid By Any Other Name (ss) Sept 75
The Sands of Titan (na) June 10
The Search for the World's
First Equestrians (fa) Nov 48
The Unrung Bells of
the Marie Celeste (ss) Jan/Feb 106
Lowe, C. Sanford—(with G. David Nordley)
The Small Pond (na) March 100
Loki's Realm (na) July/Aug 150
Vertex (na) Sept 100
* * * *
Martino, Joseph P.—
A Bridge in Time (ss) Oct 52
McDevitt, Jack—(with Michael Shara)
Cool Neighbor (nt) March 86
Mitchell, E. Mark—
Numerous Citations (na) Jan/Feb 148
Stranger Things (nt) Sept 56
* * * *
Nordley, G. David—(with C. Sanford Lowe)
The Small Pond (na) March 100
Loki's Realm (na) July/Aug 150
Vertex (na) Sept 100
* * * *
Oltion, Jerry—
Crackers (ss)
April 60
If Only We Knew (ss) Jan/Feb 115
Salvation (ss) Dec 72
* * * *
Plante, Brian—
The Astronaut (ss) May 53
* * * *
River, Uncle—
Ginger Ear And Elephant Hair (nt) Sept 85
Rollins, Grey—
Super Gyro (nt) Jan/Feb 76
Rusch, Kristine Kathryn—
The Taste of Miracles (ss) Jan/Feb 104
* * * *
Sawyer, Robert J.—
Rollback, conclusion (se) Jan/Feb 184
Schembrie, Joe—
The Caves of Ceres (nt) July/Aug 96
Schmidt, Stanley—
“The Cheesesteak Nazi, The Colonel,
and the Food Police” (ed) Jan/Feb 4
“New Writers” (ed) March 4
“Citizen Science” (ed) April 4
“Metascience and Mail Fraud” (ed) May 4
“Foggy Borderlands” (ed) June 4
“The Capacity of Dreams” (ed) July/Aug 4
“Adapting” (ed) Sept 4
“Gestures” (ed) Oct 4
“Double Standard Required” (ed) Nov 4
“...Help the Medicine Go Down” (ed) Dec 4
Schroeder, Karl—
Queen of Candesce, part I of IV (se) March 10
Queen of Candesce, part II of IV (se) April 92
Queen of Candesce, part III of IV (se) May 96
Queen of Candesce, conclusion (se) June 94
Sedia, Ekaterina—
Virus Changes Skin (ss) Oct 64
Shara, Michael—(with Jack McDevitt)
Cool Neighbor (nt) March 86
Smith, Lesley L.—
Anything Would Be Worth It (ss) Dec 61
Sparhawk, Bud—
The Suit (ss) Nov 95
Stratmann, H. G.—
The Paradise Project (nt) Nov 114
Strock, Ian Randal—
All the Things That Can't Be (pz) Nov 90
* * * *
Tourtellotte, Shane—
Trial by Fire (na) April 8
* * * *
Vajra, Rajnar—
Emerald River, Pearl Sky (na) Jan/Feb 9
On the Bubble (nt) June 60
Virtes, Scott—
Jimmy the Box (ss) July/Aug 126
* * * *
Walsh, Kevin—
Finding Planemos (fa) Dec 31
Analog SFF, January-February 2008 Page 40
