THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
05/21/10 -- Vol. 28, No. 47, Whole Number 1598
C3PO: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
R2D2: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
You Never Know (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Moon Zoo (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Frank Frazetta, Old Movies, and BONESHAKER
(letter of comment by John Purcell)
This Week's Reading (EGYPT, CANAAN, AND ISRAEL IN ANCIENT
TIMES) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: You Never Know (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Next time you see a can of Arizona Iced Tea check to make sure its
nutrition statement is in order. [-mrl]
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TOPIC: Moon Zoo (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Scanning my daily science pages I saw some references to a new
Internet site called "Moon Zoo", run by NASA. I thought the title
was unlikely since there is no life on the Moon and "zoo" really
refers to "animal". But a piece of e-mail from friend Greg
Frederick suggested I take a closer look at Moon Zoo. You can see
it at http://www.Moonzoo.org.
This is one of those projects that let ordinary people and/or their
computers take part in some real science discovery. In a much
older project one group is looking for large prime numbers, a
computation-heavy task. You can hook your computer into the
network so in its idle time it can be searching for prime numbers.
Or another project uses your computer to look for signals of
extraterrestrial life. You basically are donating idle desktop
computer time to the project. You have a double benefit in that
you can feel you are contributing to the extension of humanity's
knowledge base and also while your desktop processor is kept busy
it cannot be planning taking over the neighborhood and
exterminating carbon-based life forms. You want to keep your PC or
Mac too busy to plot rebellion and world domination.
So what is this all about? Well NASA has put in orbit around the
Moon their Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. It is taking a
*lot* of high-resolution pictures of the Moon. It can make out
visible features a half yard across. If it is collecting in such
detail there are a lot of pictures to look at. And scientists can
do only so much with automatic computer analysis. So the claim is
that you can, with their software, take a "virtual Moonwalk",
something that smacks of a Disneyworld Ride. In fact you can be
doing some real science with a useful outcome. To me that sounds
better.
Most of what you will be doing is identifying the size and number
of craters and pointing out other interesting features to call to
the attention of NASA experts. Okay, it is not the most glamorous
work, but I can believe it is useful data-collecting. You will
actually be adding in a modest way to our knowledge of the Moon.
I will describe what you do for the crater survey.
You are presented with one of these highly detailed pictures of the
Moon's surface. I don't know if you will be the first to see this
picture, but you will be one of very few people who have seen this
stretch of Moon. You put your cursor over the picture and you will
be able to find it with crosshairs. Where the crosshairs come
together there is a circle. You put that circle over a crater. If
the crater can be completely hidden by the circle you can ignore
it. It is sort of like throwing the small fish back. If the
crater is bigger than the circle it is a feature of interest. You
click on the circle and drag it, and it increases in size. So you
can use it to reasonably well express the size of the crater. You
can also stretch the circle into an ellipse if the crater is more
elliptical in shape. Once you have cataloged all the craters in
the picture you can look for other features of interest. These
might include little points of rock, graffiti, nine-legged
creatures, a carved humanoid face, a cigarette butt, or even just
an old Almond Joy wrapper that has been carelessly discarded. The
points of rock are the most likely. And I am not saying you will
find any of these things, but if you do, please report it.
When you are done you click "submit" and your species will know a
little more about the lunar surface. The density of craters will
tell how old the surface is and how deep the craters are. The
instructions appear at the web site.
There is another application with the overly cute name "Boulder
Wars." You just look at two different stretches of surface and
record which one has more boulders. This will help find what
regions have more and less boulder coverage. If region A has more
boulders than B, and B has more than C, then A has more than C.
NASA will quickly will find the areas of greatest boulder density.
In any case you will be looking at features that may be as old as
four billion years. That is about 30% of the time since the Big
Bang. You won't see features that old on the Earth since they
would have been eroded by atmosphere.
So if you have some time, you might want to be among the first to
look in detail at some sections of the surface of the Moon.
Minor complaints: you will not know how big the square of surface
you are looking at is, and you won't know where on the Moon it is.
But what are you doing more exciting than exploring the Moon?
[-mrl]
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TOPIC: Frank Frazetta, Old Movies, and BONESHAKER (letter of
comment byJohn Purcell)
In response to the 05/14/10 issue of the MT VOID, John Purcell
writes:
Long time no loc! Yes indeed, it has been awhile, but I am always
grateful to receive the latest MT VOID like clockwork every Friday.
Amazing staying power you two have. I stand--or rather, sit--agog
at your devotion.
[It keeps us off the streets and out of mischief. Thanks for the
nice comments. -mrl]
A couple of things got to me this time around, notably the passing
this past week of one of my all-time favorite illustrators, Frank
Frazetta. His work always amazed me. Such detailed artwork and yet
the figures, either human or nonhuman, never seemed out of
proportion or unbelievable. To me that is the mark of a true
artist. Some of my prized possessions are the Burroughs and Howard
books that Frazetta illustrated. Fabulous. Fans around the world
are stunned by his loss, perhaps even more stunned by the family
developments of the past few years. The whole craziness around
Frank Jr. makes one wonder what was really going on.
Interestingly, though, none of that seems to matter to me right
now. I mourn the passing of a great one, and dearly hope that the
family battle doesn't drag the Frazetta name down more than it has
descended already.
[Frazetta had that rare talent to get people excited about the
images he found exciting. And my guess is that he was paid for
doing what he loved. That is a rare privilege. -mrl]
My wife and I have a number of old movies on DVD now, such as the
Peter Lorre film you mention, THE FACE BEHIND THE MASK. We find
quite a few of them in those $1 DVD bins at Wal-Mart or at the
Dollar Tree. That's how I found the Vincent Price version of THE
LAST MAN ON EARTH doubled with THE DEVIL'S MESSENGER (1961),
starring Lon Chaney, Jr., to say nothing of assorted Roger Corman
gems like THE HAUNTED SEA and other DVD's of ROCKY JONES, SPACE
RANGER and the Steve Holland FLASH GORDON television episodes. It
really is fun to dig through those bins and find some good films.
Granted, there's a lot of junk to sift through, but that's to be
expected. Patience brings rewards--and some really gawd-awful
skiffy flicks. Nothing better than that.
[As time goes buy I find less that I want and do not already own,
but what is good is the hunt. -mrl]
BONESHAKER sounds like an interesting novel. I have been enjoying
a lot of the Steampunk novels being published lately, and this one
sounds like I'd enjoy it too. So thank you very much for another
recommended read, and it's nominated for a Hugo? I didn't know
that; guess that just displays how much I care about those awards
nowadays. C'est la vie...
Thanks again for the zine, and I look forward to next Friday's
edition. [-jp]
[Well, you have it. I hope it lives up to your expectations. -mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
EGYPT, CANAAN, AND ISRAEL IN ANCIENT TIMES by Donald B. Redford
(ISBN 0-691-00086-7) covers the history of that area from the Stone
Age until 586 B.C.E. While it is very detailed, nonetheless most
non-specialist readers will find the second half more interesting
in that it is about a period they are familiar with--supposedly--
because of the history of it given in the Bible. However, Redford
has little use for this Biblical history (or, as he would say,
"history").
Redford begins by saying, "The patient and observant reader will
have noted that, up to this point in our study, no mention has been
made of Israel or its ancestral patriarchs. The reason for this is
an empirical one; in our sources, both Egyptian and west Asian,
there are virtually no references to Israel, its congeners, or
Biblical associates prior to the twelfth century B.C.; and beyond
that point for four centuries a mere half dozen allusions can be
elicited."
[I can understand that he is saying what he finds in the Bible is
not corroborated elsewhere. But I suspect a lot of what he does
accept comes from only one source. I am not saying that he
should accept the Bible, but my suspicion is that a lot of what he
he considers history is from very subjective sources. That is just
the nature of history. -mrl]
Redford then presents a succinct chronological argument against
taking the Biblical history of the Pentateuch, Joshua, and Judges
as accurate. He begins with the destruction of Jerusalem in 586
B.C.E. Adding up the lengths of the reigns of the kings since the
dedication of the Temple (in the fourth year of the reign of
Solomon), he gets 430 years, which puts the Temple at 1016 B.C.E.
According to I Kings 6:1, that was 480 years after the Exodus,
putting the Exodus in 1496 B.C.E. Exodus 12:40 says that the
Sojourn in Egypt lasted 430 years, so Jacob's family want down to
Egypt in 1926 B.C.E. Adding up the lives of Abraham (Genesis
21:9), Isaac (Genesis 25-26), and Jacob (Genesis 47:9), we get
another 290 years or 2216 B.C.E. for the birth of Abraham. So
Abraham arrived in Canaan in 2141 B.C.E. (Genesis 12:4) and his
descent to Egypt between then and 2116 B.C.E. (Genesis 12:10-19).
Now Redford works forward and synchronizes the Biblically-derived
dates with the historical Egyptian chronology. The Sojourn in
Egypt would have covered "the outgoing 12th Dynasty, the entire
13th Dynasty, the Hyksos occupation, and the early [14th] Dynasty
to Hatshepsut's ninth year!" After the 40 years in the desert, the
conquest of Canaan must have started in 1456 B.C.E. "or on the
morrow of Thutmose III's victorious campaigns when all Canaan
belonged to Egypt, and on the eve of Amenophis II's deportation of
the local population. Even more astounding are the implications of
the resultant placement of the Period of the Judges, namely 1456 to
1080 [B.C.E.]. This is almost exactly coeval with the Egyptian
empire in Asia!" Yet, Redford points out, there is no mention of
the Patriarchs, the Sojourn, the Exodus, or the Conquest in any
Egyptian sources. Q.E.D. (at least according to him).
Redford goes on to note that some "Biblical exegetes" try to get
around some of these conflicts be saying, for example, that 480
years must really be 12 generations, but a generation should be
considered to be 30 years, and then you have the Exodus in 1255
B.C.E., and then the 430 years of the Sojourn should be thought of
as four generations, or 120 years, and so on.
Redford compares the attempt to answer such questions as which
Egyptian princess pulled Moses from the river to attempting to do
something similar with the Arthurian legend: "Who were the counsels
of Rome when Arthur drew the sword from the stone? Where was
Merlin born? Where is Avalon to be located?" (The only problem is
that there are people who do this.)
Redford ends this analysis by saying that the phrase "Biblical
history" ought to be used only to refer to studying the history of
the book called the Bible, and "Biblical archaeology" to refer to
the unearthing of texts that form part of that book.
For the rest of the book (covering roughly the twelfth century
through sixth century B.C.E.), Redford discusses what the Bible
says about the time as well as what the (other) historical records
say, usually to the detriment of the former. He points out the
many anachronisms. For example, Judges 1:19 talks about iron
chariots," but iron did not actually replace bronze until much
later. Judges 6:5 refers to domesticated camels; camels were not
domesticated until several hundred years later. And so on. A full
chapter is dedicated to "The Creation Accounts", "The Table of
Nations", "The Sojourn", and "The Exodus" and comparisons with
other versions and histories of the period.
As I said, most people may find the main thrust of the book a
little dry, but the sections discussing the Biblical version of
history will interest a lot more people. [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
There is no such thing as inner peace.
There is only nervousness and death.
-- Fran Lebowitz