Found an Error

Ten years ago (about), I published Treasure of the Black Hole, a science fiction adventure/detective story. 

Not to give too much of the plot away, but it does involve a black hole at one point. In describing an object in orbit around the black hole, I called the point in orbit farthest from the singularity the apoastron. "Astron" means star (like in astronomy). My thinking was a black hole is a star, or it used to be.

But according to this Wikipedia page,  the proper term is apomelasma or apobothron or aponigricon. I probably would have gone with -melasma because it's Greek for "black." Or -bothron because it's Greek for "hole."

Now is this an error that most readers will spot? Probably not. But it does bother me. A little.

And this brings me to doing research for writing. My philosophy is that unless you lived it, you can't do too much research. But what you can (and shouldn't do) is show off in your writing how much research you did. Even if you think something is really cool, don't add it to the story unless it's relative to the plot. 

But as of now, I'm wishing I had done a little more research on Treasure of the Black Hole.

Have you found an error in your work that you didn't discover until it didn't really matter anymore? Let me know in the comments below.

Cup Holders in Cars

Did you know that cup holders in cars was at one time controversial?

When I was a kid, the only "cup holder" in a car was the lid of the glove compartment that had two shallow, circular indentations on the inside of the door. I always assumed they were for putting drinks there when the car wasn't in motion.

But cup holders, at least in American cars, didn't really start until the 1980s when Chrysler introduced the minivan and put cup holders in it. Suddenly, everyone wanted cupholders.

But the European manufactures held back. They said their cars were for driving, not drinking. But Americans A) had much slower speed limits than the Europeans (especially the Germans) because of the National Maximum Speed Limit of 55/65 mph and B) wanted the convenience. 

Also, Americans drive for longer times and farther distances than Europeans. Still, the European manufactures resisted. I recently saw a 2001 BMW Z3 for sale. Judging by the pictures in the ad, it didn't have cupholders.

I can't remember which was the first car I owned with cupholders designed in the interior. It was probably in the early '90s. Every car I've owned since then, including my Corvette, had cupholders. And two of those cars were German. So, at least for the American market, Europeans relented and designed in cupholders. 

However, one company held off putting in cupholders: Bugatti. Now Bugattis aren't daily drivers. They cost over $1 million and are capable of speeds over 200 mph.

But now Bugatti has decided to put a cupholder in at least one of its cars. It's in the door, not the center console, but it's there as an option. 

Me, I use my cupholders all the time. I would have second thoughts about buying a car without them (unless it was one of my dream cars).

What do you think? Do you need cupholders in your car or are you happy without them? Let me know in the comments below.

Public-Owned Cars

Think about your car(s). It's probably your biggest expense after your house. Or if you don't have a house, your biggest expense. With car payments, maintenance, insurance (which has gone up a lot lately), gas (don't get me started), it's expensive to keep a car.

But what does your car do most of the day? It sits. You drive it to work in the morning, it sits until you go home. You get home, and it sits until you drive to work the next day. Oh, sure, you might take it somewhere like to the grocery store or to visit someone, but still it sits a lot.

I was writing this novel (that has been overtaken by events) where AI pretty much runs everything, at least in the U.S., and there are robots that help humans do a lot of things. It was a benevolent AI, at least it appeared to be so.

One of the concepts I had in the novel was that very few people owned cars. And those that did were the rich. Everyone else used public cars that were very cheap. Cheaper than owning a car. (Public transportation such as buses and light rail were free.) The cars were 100% electric and autonomous. Like Uber, you used as app on your phone to hail one, or the AI could learn your habits and have one waiting for you when you leave for work and when you go home.

(Not too long ago I heard Neil deGrasse Tyson talk about this very idea but that was after I started writing the novel.)

After a day, the cars would be washed inside and out. If someone tried to vandalize one (or used it for a bathroom), it would take them to the police station for the robots cops to deal with (there were still a few human police officers).

There would be no need for huge parking lots around stores as the cars would drop people off and then pick them up after shopping. Those parking lots could be turned into grassy areas or even parks.

There are, however, lots of privacy problems with this concept. And what if someone hacked into your public car and drove it off a bridge? Plus, I would hate this. I like driving and I like driving fast cars.

I kind of imagined them white inside and out and pod-like. If you wanted to spend more money, you could have a nicer one. And if you have enough money, you could own a nice car. I also had the very rich own "antiques" that were not autonomous and were limited to 80 km/h (~50 mph) on public roads.

Here's a short, funny video about this concept.

What do you think of my concept (or deGrasse Tyson's concept)? Would you be willing to give up your cars for a publicly owned pod? Let me know in the comments below.

I Don't Watch Old Movies Anymore

I realized recently that I don't watch old movies anymore. And I blame the demise of DVD.com.

Back when I used DVD.com (formerly Netflix before streaming) to watch movies, I would put new releases at the top of my queue, but new releases didn't come all the time. In order to justify what I was paying for DVD.com, I would watch three movies every two weeks. And there wasn't always a new release. So I backfilled with older movies. 

For example, I went through a period where I watched a lot of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's movies, including Seven Samurai. One of his movies, Stray Dog, was set shortly after World War II in Tokyo so I used it as research for my novel Hammer of Thor. I watched Throne of Blood (based on Macbeth) and Rashōmon and others. I highly recommend Rashōmon. It has a unique concept that has been stolen a lot (including a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode).

I went through an Alfred Hitchcock phase where I watched every movie I could find directed by Hitchcock, including his pre-Hollywood stuff. It was interesting watching him hone his craft. I also watched his Hollywood movies. Rear Window and Lifeboat are my favorites. 

But since DVD.com went away, I struggle to watch just new movies, forget old movies. I'll sometimes get a hankering to watch some old movie, so I'll Google it to see where I can stream it, but there's almost always a cost (such as $5.99), and then I just say, "Nah." I did watch Stalag 17 recently because it was on a PBS station. It's a good movie about a World War II prison camp. Yes, Hogan's Heroes is loosely based on it.

The last DVD I watched from DVD.com was Fast X.

Since DVD.com went away in September 2023, I have watched 36 new releases, mostly streaming and a couple in the theater (such as Oppenheimer). The latest was Gladiator II on Paramount+ last weekend.

Do you watch old movies? How do you find them? Let me know in the comments below.

New College Football Alignment Idea

One major problem with Pac-12 teams joining the Big10 is the travel. The Big10 now pretty much covers the northern part of the continental United States plus Los Angeles. Rutgers is in New Jersey but they year they will be traveling to Seattle to play the University of Washington Huskies in football. Conversely, the Huskies will be traveling across the nation to play Maryland at home. And last year, teams that had to travel more than two time zones to play tended to lose.

So I've been toying with the idea of just having regional conferences that all have between 10 and 15 teams. Well, someone did that. It wouldn't totally reconstitute the Pac-12, but it's close. The one problem I see is some of those divisions such as the "Mountains + Southwest" wouldn't have any major media markets in it (there is Denver but that's not very big compared to Los Angeles). So that conference would likely have problems getting large media payments. And media money is what drives college football now (unfortunately). 

That's what killed the Pac-12. When USC and UCLA announced they were going to the Big10 (for more money), it deprived the Pac-12 of its biggest media market: Los Angeles. So the networks weren't willing to pay as much for the media rights. It got so bad that AppleTV was bidding for the Pac-12 media rights.

But I have an idea for that, too. How about NCAA Div I FBS football negotiates media rights like the NFL: all at once for all conferences. "You want LA, you also have to take Boise." That could solve that problem.

So then all we'd need to fix is NIL and the transfer portal.

What do you think? Good idea or not? Let me know in the comments below.

Electronic Notepad

 I bought one of those electronic notepads a while back and tried it out. They had a free-return policy if I didn't like it. 

When doing freelance writing, I was tired of searching through my hand-written notes to find something. The notebook was supposed to turn my writing into text that was searchable. I thought that would be great.

I did like a lot about it. The feel of it was just like writing on paper. I could store my notes as a PDF on my computer and not have them in my physical files which I then clean out occasionally.

But the problem was, it couldn't read my writing. To paraphrase Gandalf, "There are few who can." Sometimes I have trouble reading my writing. Here's an example of me trying to write neatly:

So you can see they the electronic notebook had issues.

So I sent it back for a refund.

Have you tried any electronic devices to make your writing easier? Let me know how it worked in the comments below.

Beautiful Cars

Lamborghini Countach

I was admiring a very expensive car and I called it, in my mind, "beautiful." 

And then I got to thinking. Why do I (and other people) call these mechanical devices "beautiful"?

We call paintings and books and sculptures and other man-made things beautiful. So why not cars? Just because they are also functional, doesn't lessen their beauty. If you Google "beautiful car" you get a lot of images, some that are more beautiful than others.

As. the saying goes "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." There are probably people who would never find a car beautiful. I remember a long time ago I was with my parents in Monterey, California, and there was a white Lamborghini Countach parked on the street. And my mother said, "What an ugly car." But I found it beautiful. But my opinion might have been swayed by knowing it had a V12 engine that sat behind the driver. 

And, in general, what is this penchant humans have for finding inanimate things beautiful: mountains, lakes, trees. Or animals. If someone pointed out a beautiful horse to me, I'd have to take their word for it. But a pretty cat, I'm all about that (since our family got a cat seven years ago). 

Why do you think humans call so many diverse things "beautiful"? Let me know in the comments below.