Last night, at 0:36 GMT, contact with Philae was lost, as the lander’s non-rechargeable battery drained and it entered hibernation. Considering the very low amount of sunlight available in the location it eventually ended up in at the end of the two jumps it made after first touching down on the surface, the odds of the solar panels producing enough energy to exit this state in the near future are just about zero, despite the fact that the lift and turn operation succeeded, lifting Philae by about four centimeters and rotating it about 35 degrees in order to place the larger solar panel in the one area that does receive at least some sunlight. Still, there is hope for later, as it is believed the lander will be able to withstand the low temperatures it’s currently facing and the power situation will obviously improve as the comet approaches perihelion.
Something that seemed strange to me is the timeline, however, as it was initially stated that the conditions will become too hot for Philae to continue operating in March, yet during yesterday’s Hangout it was said that the power situation should improve enough when the comet will be at less than 1 AU from the Sun, and they mentioned late summer, perhaps August or as late as September. Admittedly, being in the shade and receiving about one and a half hours of sunlight on one side and about 20 minutes on a couple of others per comet “day”, which lasts about 12.4 hours, instead of the planned six to seven hours, does definitely mean that it won’t get nearly as hot, but that’s quite a difference.
Either way, they said the one solar panel that receives some sunlight for about one and a half hours per comet day produced less than one watt and the peak, for the 20 or so minutes when a couple of others come partially out of the shade as well, was three to four watts. That may have increased slightly now that they moved the larger solar panel in the better position, but when they also said Philae requires 5.1 watts to boot up and, at the moment, 50 to 60 to heat the battery to the 0°C required to start charging, it’s clear it’ll be a long time before anything may happen, and even longer before enough power will build up to support other instruments as well and do some more science.
Now we could dwell on what went wrong, starting with the failure of the thruster and harpoons which should have made Philae stay where it first landed, continuing with the fact that some of the operations which should have been performed on the surface of the comet were actually performed some distance above it, as the instruments started gathering information as soon as the lander first touched down, and ending with this particularly unfortunate position Philae eventually stopped in, which prevents it from continuing to operate at the moment. However, an incredible number of things went well, and this is what allowed this insanely daring attempt to be a success, because this is precisely what it was.
More than 20 years since this mission started being planned and ten years after launch, a man-made spacecraft caught up to a comet, entered orbit around it and delivered on its surface a lander which managed to complete its primary mission and transmit the science data obtained before it entered hibernation. This was an unbelievably difficult endeavor and so much could go so wrong that the idea of it succeeding on the first attempt as much as it did was likely difficult to believe for many who had some grasp of what was involved.
So now we move on and see what comes next, as Rosetta will continue orbiting the comet throughout next year, gathering as much information as possible before, according to some recent statements, eventually finding its final resting place on the surface as well. And if, at any point during that time, Philae will wake up as well, things can only get better, and if its current sheltered position will help it survive the period of closest approach to the Sun and the comet’s activity won’t otherwise damage it too badly, there’s even a chance it may somehow hop away from that spot and find one where it’ll receive more sunlight on the way back, allowing for far more observations than initially hoped for.
I’m going to end this by simply saying congratulations to ESA and to everyone else involved, and let’s hope space exploration will continue to offer us as a species reasons to celebrate. Once again, I must point out that, considering how little attention and funding governments seem willing to spare for such efforts, this seems quite unlikely right now, and considering the amount of time that passes between the moment any such endeavor starts being planned and the final, visible triumph, the results of this current attitude will hurt us all for decades to come, but as long as we’ll still have groups of passionate, dedicated and absolutely brilliant people, miracles may still happen. And this obviously applies to any field one may think of.
Though the active descent system failed, Philae has successfully landed on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. So, though the future of space exploration looks grim, today we have some reason to celebrate. Today, for the first time, humanity has a probe operating on the surface of a comet. Granted, I’m not sure such a project would have been approved these days anymore, but we’re talking about something that began being planned in 1993 and a launch that took place back in 2004. These days, I doubt they’d even dare to dream of such things anymore, and even if some still would, they’d quickly find that such plans can no longer be anything other than dreams.
It was a crazy idea; finding a comet, catching up to it, entering orbit around such a small celestial body that also changes as it approaches perihelion, having the orbiter drop a lander at pretty much walking pace and then having that lander latch on to the comet using harpoons, somehow avoiding bouncing or propelling itself back up while doing so despite the comet’s extremely weak gravity making it weigh roughly one gram and the escape velocity being of only around one meter per second. Of course, that thruster was there just to avoid such a scenario, and the fact that it apparently failed left absolutely no room for error and made the landing be to a significant extent a matter of luck, as any irregularity in the landing spot would have made latching on impossible without the thruster… But apparently another failure made that no longer be an issue for the Rosetta team at this point.
Unfortunately, I’m saying that because, just as I was finishing writing the above paragraph, I heard that, while Philae had a softer landing than expected and therefore didn’t quite fly away on its own, the anchors failed as well. As such, the lander is not anchored to the comet, which is quite a problem considering the extremely weak gravity and the fact that the comet will be increasingly active. It would appear that the team is trying to decide whether they should try activating the anchors once again or that’s too much of a risk, so there are problems and the mission may still fail completely if Philae begins to slide or bounce away, but at this very moment it is standing still on the surface of the comet and, at least according to the information released so far, its instruments appear to be operating normally.
At some point I briefly listed my top ideas in my OkCupid profile as “getting the population back down to sustainable levels without killing people or allowing them to die unnecessarily, protecting the environment and the other species we share this planet with, switching to a fair resource-based economy that’ll do away with any need to ‘earn a living’, giving much greater importance to personal relationships than current society tends to expect or even permit, and guaranteeing each person’s right to live as they please as long as they don’t harm others who don’t deserve it or the environment”.
However, recently I seem to have managed to list them in a form that, while still very brief compared to what would need to be explained, does offer each of them its own paragraph. The problem is that I did that on my KoTango profile, while poking at that place with a few twigs, and that profile can only be seen by site members despite the fact that I set it to be public. As such, it seems like a good idea to add this here as well, for future reference and also to have something to link to whenever the need for such brief explanations will arise.
Later edit: Since KoTango vanished at some point, it’s a good thing I saved these here.
1. Overpopulation. It’s the world’s worst problem and drastically lowering the human population is absolutely necessary, though of course not in itself sufficient, before we’ll have a chance to solve any other important environmental or social issue. Obviously, that should be done without killing people or allowing them to die unnecessarily, due to lack of access to needed resources or services, so the number of births must be reduced by any means necessary to around the minimum required to avoid a genetic bottleneck while those still allowed to have children should be carefully and objectively selected to bring evolution back into the game while preserving diversity.
2. Environment and animal welfare. Humanity’s unique position as the species which can shape this world according to its will is far more of a responsibility to care for all the others we share it with and for the ecosystem as a whole than a right to exploit them according to our whims. We must take our role as stewards seriously, make every effort to fix the damage already caused, preserve what should be preserved largely unchanged, offer evolution a helping hand whenever appropriate and possible while remaining within the laws of Nature, and strive to eliminate or at least greatly reduce the suffering of all species sufficiently advanced to be aware of it and remember.
3. Relationships. Society should not only permit but strongly encourage people to put their personal relationships, whether romantic or close friendships, above everything except perhaps certain major causes. Ways to develop, preserve and strengthen these bonds, to eliminate the suffering caused by the current typical models and to help people share their lives more easily, more deeply and more completely with their family of choice should be promoted and taught, and a way of life meant to guide the vast majority of people towards prioritizing these relationships over the other aspects of their lives should become the norm.
4. A fair resource-based economy. We have reached a state of development allowing us to do away with any need to earn a living and should therefore guarantee a decent standard of living for all bar those proven guilty of serious crimes, fairly and efficiently sharing the resources that can be sustainably harvested to meet every need and as many wants as possible. Additional benefits should be granted to those whose actions or achievements will significantly improve the lives of others or the environment, as well as to those who’d fill the few positions that’d still need to be filled by humans and have a good performance in those jobs, but all but the dangerous criminals must be free to live their lives and pursue their interests without risking to have their standard of living drop below a decent level.
5. Individual rights and freedoms. All should be free to live their lives as they please as long as they won’t willingly cause unjustified harm to others or to the environment and will do all they can to fix any unjustified harm caused unintentionally once the situation is brought to their attention and explained. Ideally, countries should be defined by laws, children need to be taught about all the available options and adults should be free to move to the place most suited to their views, as I believe people all over the world would work together better if those they’d actually live around and possibly interact with on a daily basis would be people they’d actually like to be surrounded by.
Once again, if you already know me you already know all of this and more, while if you somehow ended up here without knowing me there are enough details missing about each to fill a few posts, which in some cases I have already written at various points, but I actually think I managed to come up with a rather good summary and it was a shame to keep it hidden away.
I was saying I had volunteered to help with a translation and it seems that I only finished with that today. At first I had simply translated the ten-minute “slice” I had volunteered for, without even using proper Romanian characters, since my brain just ignores those and replaces them with the standard letters they’re similar to, so I had to go through it all again several times to add those where needed after being told I should do that. Then there was the matter of adding the timestamps as well, since the guy coordinating this effort said the translation itself is more important and he could ask for other volunteers to do that part but it’d be a whole lot better if the actual subtitles would be done along with the translation. And then, once that was done and he looked over what I did, I also ended up looking over the “slice” he had done, since he said it seems a better idea if I check his instead of the other way around.
Well, I did that as well, made a number of changes, sent it back to him and didn’t get any reply in about a week… Until immediately after I said the matter was probably all settled by then and deleted the files, only to get a message from him some five minutes later saying he tried but there can’t seem to be any more willing volunteers and it’d be a pity to throw it all aside and waste the effort we made so far, so if I could please do another ten minutes and he’ll do the last part.
That was Tuesday night, so I did the translation itself on Wednesday and then yesterday and today went through it again to add the timestamps and also as many of those annoying Romanian characters as possible. Tried to use them as I was translating, but that only made that take a few times longer than it should have taken and, based on how many corrections I had to make later, I think I barely got a little more than half of them put in the right places, and there’s of course a pretty high chance that some were still missing when I sent the file. Doing that just about broke my brain even more than it usually is anyway.
Now I do have some experience with such translations from the interviews dad was asking me to help him with now and then, and now the sound quality was mostly better and in a few cases the images also helped, but there were still a few places where I simply couldn’t make out what was being said and a few others where I’m not entirely sure what was meant, since certain words in English may mean different things in Romanian. What’s worse is that, if in case of the translations I was doing for dad it didn’t exactly matter if there were some question marks here and there, since he generally knew what it was about and could fill in names or specialized terms and pick the correct meaning when I was uncertain, here I doubt there will be someone to do that accurately, so I’m feeling pretty bad about everything I couldn’t quite figure out…
But I guess it at least counts as doing something, and also as finally living up to the fact that I did state I was willing to help out with English translations when I filled a form during a protest, yet so far had never offered. Whether I’d do it again, I’m not sure, but right now I’m just going to have a shower and then crawl in bed… Perhaps surprisingly for some, getting something done when you don’t feel like doing anything, for the same reasons you haven’t felt like doing anything for the past more than nine years, doesn’t make me feel better at all.
Between 2003 and 2006, I was posting reviews on BookCrossing for any book I read that was registered on that site, which, at least after the first part of that period, meant the vast majority of them. Those reviews varied greatly in size, style and quality, tended to include a fair amount of spoilers not marked in any way and also various typos and spelling and grammar mistakes I’d be terribly embarrassed by these days, but they were all there. In addition, some of them also included personal notes or comments referring to what was happening in my life at the time, which made me want to gather and preserve them in one place for a long time.
Then, after the period of my life during which I read so much thanks to having access to so many books I was actually interested in ended in such an abrupt manner, I only made an account on another site where I could post such reviews in December of 2008. That site was Shelfari, and I continued to use it until a few days before the end of 2012, posting ratings and something which may be called quick reviews, if not simply brief comments, for anything I read between 2010 and then. Strangely enough, what I posted during 2009 were such quick reviews for five of the seven books I had read in 2008, while for some reason I can’t currently comprehend I never even added the first four books in the A Song of Ice and Fire series to my shelf, despite having bought and read them that year.
Now, since the end of 2012, I’ve been using Goodreads, and creating an account there first made me seriously plan to gather all of these reviews in one place. However, while I copied everything I had on Shelfari within days and then also added a quick review for one more of those books read in 2008, the BookCrossing reviews prove difficult to tackle in more ways than one, so I started and stopped a few times and therefore some of them still aren’t there even now. In addition, I always felt it’d be wrong to simply copy those old reviews there as they are, so on top of making the necessary corrections and hiding spoilers inside spoiler tags, or sometimes deleting them completely, I also keep those personal comments out of the version posted on Goodreads, meaning that I still need a place to gather all of them as they are. Corrected, of course, but without missing parts that are relevant to me personally.
That’s where the new Books category comes in. This week’s first post listed some fantasy recommendations and was the first one actually posted in this category, but I have since managed to copy all of these reviews originally posted on either Shelfari or Goodreads, including the two that are actually worth being called as such, here, along with the ratings. This includes the Goodreads version of my quick review for The Black Jewels Trilogy, as instead of simply making some necessary corrections I expanded on the original BookCrossing version and actually explained what I meant by the few words I had managed to throw there back when I finished reading it.
My aim is to also preserve the original dates of these posts, so at the moment you’ll notice that the one containing the fantasy recommendations is the most recent showing up under that category, but that proved particularly difficult for those originally posted on Shelfari, as the original dates were lost either when I made some corrections or additions, perhaps even to something other than the review itself, or, in most cases, when I poked around to copy all information to Goodreads. As such, I used the date listed as the date I finished reading for those read between 2010 and the end of 2012, but for those posted in 2009 all I could do was make more or less educated guesses based on any information I could still find, so most of those may be off by up to a few days, and one of them even by a month or more, since I couldn’t narrow it down any further.
What isn’t listed at all on these sites, on the other hand, is the time, so you’ll find all of these showing up as having been posted at 11:59 PM, unless there’s information saying otherwise. However, if there’s an existing post with the same date and time or there are multiple such reviews posted on the same day and they’re unrelated, I’ll set the time so they’ll be a minute apart, one after the other, at the end of the day, since there seem to be some issues if two or more posts have the same date and time. I chose 11:59 PM instead of 12:00 AM because I tend to write these during the evening or even at night and therefore that’s likely to be closer to the actual time, and in fact, depending on the time zone used by each site, it’s very possible that some of them were actually written after midnight, so on the next day for me.
Now I’ll have to move on to those originally posted on BookCrossing, in order to add them here as well, but that won’t be any easier than it was the first time around, so I won’t finish them too soon, especially since now I won’t be discarding those personal comments. I won’t be discarding or hiding spoilers either, only perhaps editing the few where such spoilers are in fact replies to reviews written by others, in which case I’ll try to make them make sense on their own. As such, anyone looking for a version that’s “safe” to read should check what is, or what will be, posted by me on Goodreads instead.
What I’m uncertain about is what to do if there will be any others like that one for The Black Jewels Trilogy, as in having a Goodreads version that has significant additions compared to the BookCrossing one. In that case, I used the date of the latest version, but it does feel weird to do so, and it’ll be even worse if some of the others will prove to be part of series. Then again, I’m not sure there are any others in this situation, as I recall specifically wanting to add something to that one because it’s one of my favorites, but if there will be, I expect to get stuck trying to reach a decision for quite a long time.
