OPERATIONS: still zero energy, so today is for scriptment – that version of scripting where you just slap down dialogue and vague directions and then go back when you feel human to convert it up into full script. STATUS: two steps from the boneyard READING:A FIELD GUIDE TO REALITY, Joanna Kavenna (UK) (US+)
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.
I started to feel a little better yesterday, managed to overextend myself by cleaning out the chicken coop and turning the compost bins, and then got mild food poisoning. I’m ready to lay down on the edge of the property and get eaten by pigs like in DEADWOOD.
I have remembered, for the first time in a week, to do my short stack: 2000mg liposomal nicotinamide riboside with TMG and Pterostilbene, Vit D3 and K2, 1 Floradix for insurance, taken with a bowl of blueberries, blackberries, almonds and honey.
SpaceX shifts focus from Mars to Moon, which seems from here to be about Musk working hard to realign himself with the White House. Also, since the US is all about the Moon in terms of space policy right now, the money is right there, and SpaceX has its eye on ramping to 10,000 launches per annum, largely in pursuit of lofting space-based AI compute. It’s also worth nothing that Japan have now started beaming space-based solar power back to earth via microwave.
PROJECT HAIL MARY trailer. People are saying it contains spoilers. It does not. A trailer for a buddy movie that introduces both buddies does not constitute a spoiler.
Bought myself a leather notebook cover that can contain up to six Field Notes notebooks, from InkitLeather here in the UK.
I also had my eye on the covers from Veyrona, but it looks like they might be winding down.
Additionally, I saw something unusual on MUJI, of all places: a Vietnamese variant on the French chore jacket, long-cut/fingertip-length, in a blend of denim and kapok, which I picked up in a medium grey with matching wide-leg trouser.
I’m wearing a new ribbed grey 100% cotton henley that I picked up for a song from a site that didn’t appear to know they were selling it, under a black Carharrt work shirt I’ve had for a dozen years and which seems to be indestructible, paired with a black Carharrt utility pant. I love workwear and I cannot lie. I fell back in love with clothes a few years back and am enjoying it a lot.
STATUS: siiick READING: A FIELD GUIDE TO REALITY, Joanna Kavenna (UK) (US+) , M SON OF THE CENTURY, Antonio Scurati (UK) (US+) LISTENING: Just discovered Duo Ruut via Night Tracks on Radio 4:
About to switch on the Retro Nano and stream some podcasts from the phone: I deleted hundreds of episodes of stuff from the app that I know I will simply never get to.
Today I feel like I might have hit the midpoint of The Mange, as I feel a little stronger and clearer. Currently deleting some distraction apps and putting the AI devices in a drawer – the Bee can no longer access current information, it tells me, and the Rabbit can’t perform scheduled tasks without a reminder to perform them, which kind of defeats the purpose of scheduling tasks. Currently shopping for new notebook covers – I have a passport-sized Wanderings notebook cover and a newestor leather cover sized for Field Notes notebooks, of which I still have a ton from years of being on the Field Notes subscription service, and I have a feeling I need at least one more of the latter. Although this might also be the year I crack and get myself a Roterfaden. Scriptorium-monk mode!
STATUS: it is time to blitz out my inbox, my RSS feed and my podcast queue. Having to clean-slate everything barely six weeks into the year is not where I thought I’d be. READING: finished THE ART OF WAR, Sun Tzu (UK) (US+) last night. As previously noted, I tend to use winter to read the books I should have read/re-read years ago. LISTENING: Oh my god, this. I discovered Barn Hoppit last night and this is extraordinary:
LAST WATCHED: FIRST BLOOD. There are, as far as I’m concerned, only two Rambo films: FIRST BLOOD and RAMBO.
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.
I’ve been reading newsletters. Lots of different kinds. I did that awful thing last night where I disappeared into my phone for four hours, just reading and studying and appraising. I’ve been having to rejig my own newsletter a bit this month, due to a dose of Best Laid Plans being laughed at by the universe. Because the universe is mostly dark matter.
I have a feeling I’ve seen a few people comment that there is more writing out in the world than at any time in human history. And, of course, print literature now has to jostle for money with paid Substacks and the like, just as broadcast TV now has to wrestle with streamers for every eyeball. Lots of launches, lots of decaying orbits. Space is weird right now and I’m wondering what it looks like and what’s next.
TODAY:
Asteroid 2024 YR4 has a 4% chance of hitting the moon. Astronomers who never saw SPACE 1999 or read SEVENEVES are very excited about this because they could look at real-time collision effects, moonquakes, maybe recover chunks of rock and absolutely not witness the moon knocked out of its orbit.
“Did you know Charles Babbage hosted soirées most Saturday nights during the London “season” from the early 1830s until the early 1850s? That’s where Ada Lovelace first saw the difference engine when she was just 17. The guest list included people you’ve definitely heard of: Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Michael Faraday and Felix Mendelsohn for instance, and people who were as famous at the time, like Caroline Norton, the author and political lobbyist who secured divorced women the right to custody of their own children, and later copyright of their own writing. Or Mary Somerset, the famed mathematician. Harriet Martineau, arguably Britain’s first sociologist, and Monsieur Sismondi, the Swiss economist who coined the term proletariat. Actors, sculptors, politicians, aristocrats and inventors all came to these events.” No, I did not!
I have a feeling I briefly met Aleks Krotoski in Brighton once, when having coffee with Ben Hammersley? Anyway, this book seems to tie into some work I’m doing right now (which I am dreadfully late on).
What was once a wild west of experimentation has wormed its way into Washington’s corridors of power. Award-winning broadcaster and academic Aleks Krotoski journeys from cult fringes to the heartlands of government to meet the moguls, effective altruists, geroscientists and entrepreneurs who are disrupting death. Along the way she encounters radical life extensionists transfusing their teenage son’s blood, transhumanists who want to upload consciousness to the cloud, biohackers flogging AI-powered wellness apps and billionaire kingmakers building brand-new nations.
THE IMMORTALISTS: THE DEATH OF DEATH AND THE RACE FOR ETERNAL LIFE, Aleks Krotoski (UK) (US+)
OPERATIONS: yesterday was a clusterfuck so today I am all in until midnight STATUS: I am well aware that I am behind on a hundred emails READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+) LISTENING:
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.
Abruptly stopped feeling like winter at all. It’s like 9 or 10 C out there today.
I’m posting this late because I’ve been trying to assemble flatpack storage boxes to collect CDs into so that I have a little more space in the office to throw shit out so I can get new shelving in here to unpack all the CDs into. Which is a ridiculous vicious circle because I have nowhere to put the boxes I’m filling CDs with. We’ve been living here more than thirty years and we’ve filled the fucking place. And the kid moved out a dozen years ago, so it’s just the two of us and three cats. Very much reaching that “what if I just put the cats in boxes, put them outside and then threw a lit match into the house” point.
Molly Crabapple’s new book finally entered pre-orders for Kindle, so I bought one now for delivery in April. It is getting some great blurbs and early shouts.
I recently read da Empoli’s THE HOUR OF THE PREDATOR (notes to come), which was very good, so when I saw WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN on sale I snapped it up.
HERE WHERE WE LIVE IS OUR COUNTRY, Molly Crabapple (UK) (US+)
THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN, Giuliano da Empoli (UK) (US+)
Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore’s TRAGIC MAGIC just released – my CD copy will be in the post next month, apparently, but I’ve grabbed the mp3s down and they’ll be stuffed onto a SD card for my mp3 player sometime this weekend.
OPERATIONS: picked up a new consult job yesterday – the next thirteen days are rammed and I need to move faster. STATUS: Slept better, but now it’s time to resume the work of properly disconnecting from the phone in the evenings. Trying to hunt down my old cookbooks – where the fuck did I put the Faviken and Noma books? Everything in the house feels very chaotic and disorganised and I don’t have enough hours in the day. Need to make more blood orange orangeade tonight – herself has discovered she likes it with elderflower tonic. READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+) LISTENING: Ultimate Calm, currently LAST WATCHED: MOONSHINERS: MASTER DISTILLER. Three episodes. Because I unashamedly love that fucking show.
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.
If you didn’t yet get today’s newsletter, it seems the Beehiiv service is on a bit of a slowdown – as I write this, 75 minutes after the scheduler sent it out, it’s still only 68% delivered. if you didn’t get yours, it’s here:
I am at the time of writing still waiting for the system to send it to ME.
TODAY:
Neuromorphic computers. “A. field that applies principles of neuroscience to computing systems to mimic the brain’s function and structure.” Very good at partial differential equations, it turns out, which are good for fluid dynamics, weather patterning, structural stress mechanics. But here’s the good bit, buried at the bottom:
The researchers believe that neuromorphic computing could help bridge the gap between neuroscience and applied mathematics, offering new insights into how the brain processes information.
“Diseases of the brain could be diseases of computation,” Aimone said. “But we don’t have a solid grasp on how the brain performs computations yet.”
If their hunch is correct, neuromorphic computing could offer clues to better understand and treat neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
The dark matter bones of a failed galaxy. That was worth waking up for.
Now, an international team of researchers claims to have used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to discover an entirely new type of celestial object: dubbed “Cloud-9,” it’s a “starless, gas-rich, dark-matter cloud,” per the European Space Agency. The lack of stars caught the team by surprise, indicating Cloud-9 was a “fossil leftover” — what ScienceAlert memorably termed the “dark-matter bones of a failed galaxy.”
OPERATIONS: Not sure what today is yet. I have a lot of competing thoughts and I’m waiting for them to settle a bit. While also knowing in the back of my head that I have to go shopping and clear the kitchen! But I’m thinking I need to get back into a project I started developing last year, because I know the artist is waiting for the pitch document… STATUS: the temperature outside is starting a slow climb again, so I can shrug out of the heavy layers in a little while and dress less like a Dark Ages snow-cave hermit. READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+) LISTENING: New Music Show
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.
New research conducted on a NASA-discovered bacterium shows the microbe is capable of entering an extreme dormant state, essentially “playing dead” to survive in some of the cleanest environments on Earth.
The finding could potentially reshape how scientists think about microbial survival on spacecraft and the challenges of preventing contamination during missions to space. Preventing contamination matters because it helps keep space missions safe, while ensuring that any signs of life spotted elsewhere in the solar system can be trusted.
“It shows that some microbes can enter ultra-low metabolic states that let them survive extremely austere environments, including clean rooms that naturally select for the hardiest organisms,” said Nils Averesch, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the University of Florida’s Department of Microbiology and Cell Science and a member of the Astraeus Space Institute. “The fact that this bacterium can intentionally suspend its metabolism makes survival on spacecraft surfaces or during deep-space cruise more plausible than previously assumed.”
“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you’re dead.” — Tom Stoppard.
A spectre is haunting the best contemporary literary writing, the spectre of necromodernism…
Writing à propos of Louis Armand’s recent opus magnum, A Tomb in H-Section (2025), critic Ramiro Sanchiz called it “a necromodernist tour de force which animates every remain of (un)dead XXth century literature,” thus invoking the spectre of necromodernism, a modernism long-buried but still somehow living on, its undead corpse back again for yet another zombie standoff.
Necromodernism!
morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.
My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/
Technology is always changing, quickly becoming dated or even obsolete as new updates are released. Remember LaserDiscs? What about 8-tracks? For Japanese musical trio Open Reel Ensemble, analog contraptions meet digital combinations to make unique and experimental sounds. Using reel-to-reel recorders from the 1970s and 1980s as musical instruments, the stage and studio setup is just as interesting as the recordings.
Delving into a nostalgic technology, the group describes their hybrid contraptions and techniques as “magnetic folklore instruments. They tap into a sense of nostalgia for reel-to-reel, also known as magnetic tapes. They’ve described their genre as “Magnetikpunk.”
China and Japan are also building “maglev” (magnetic levitation) train lines, the article points out — though it also includes this quote from rail expert and author Christian Wolmar. “Hyperloop is unworkable. The infrastructure it needs would be amazingly expensive to build and it can’t deliver the capacity to compete with high-speed railways or airlines.
“It doesn’t integrate with existing transport modes, the infrastructure required to reach city centers would cause intolerable noise and disruption. And there are doubts over energy costs, capacity and passenger safety if something goes wrong at such high speeds….
“[T]he economics of it just don’t work.”
Scientists have captured an exceptionally rare, high-resolution view of an active region that produced two powerful X-class solar flares—an achievement rarely possible from Earth. Using the GREGOR solar telescope in Tenerife, researchers recorded the explosive activity of the sun’s most energetic sunspot group of 2025, revealing twisted magnetic structures and the early stages of flare ignition with unprecedented detail. The flares triggered fast coronal mass ejections that lit up Earth’s skies with vivid auroras in the nights that followed.
morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.
My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/
We live in changing times. While we once flippantly threw villains to the lions, now we seek to fire them into the Sun.
It sounds easy enough. The Sun is unbelievably massive, with gravity sufficient to keep the planets in their orbits over billions of years. How hard can it be?
Well, it may be harder than you think.
Fire away
The obvious way to fire someone into the Sun is the direct approach, as shown in South Park Season 1. Point a rocket at the Sun and fire. But can that work?
For a start, the rocket has to reach a speed greater than 11 kilometres per second, so it doesn’t get stuck orbiting Earth. Fine – we can send off our rocket at 20km per second for good measure. What happens next?
The results are, to be honest, disappointing. It isn’t even close: we miss the Sun by almost 100 million km.
But why? It’s because we have launched from Earth, which is travelling around the Sun at 30km per second.
In late October, the James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) captured this dramatic and beautiful phase occurring in what’s known as the Red Spider Nebula, or NGC 6537.
morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.
My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/
Earlier this month, China was forced to delay the November 5 return of three astronauts from its Tiangong space station after concerns that their ride home — a Shenzhou-20 spacecraft parked at the orbital outpost since April — had sustained damage from an impact.
And as it turns out, their suspicions were correct. In a statement to state-run news outlet Xinhua, the China Manned Space Agency revealed that crews had found “tiny cracks” in the “return capsule’s viewport window, which are most probably caused by external impact from space debris.”
As a result, the “Shenzhou-20 spacecraft does not meet the requirements for the astronauts’ safe return and will remain in orbit to continue relevant experiments.”
Two sculptural metal speakers made from a disused rocket fuel tank to reference the debris “floating in outer space” have been unveiled at this year’s Designart Tokyo.
The large cylindrical speakers were made by spatial design company Nomura‘s research and development arm, Noon by material record, and &Space Project, which reuses discarded materials from space development.
morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.
My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/
