BMU #440 is now online "Goodbye Mr Spock"

This week I start with the less than enviable task of marking the passing of science fiction's most favored son, Leonard Nimoy, known to a whole generation as Mr. Spock, of Enterprise and Star Trek fame.

To catch my breath, I play the closing music to the anime series "Good Luck Girl".  I don't know about you, but I needed something kick ass, just to get running again.

Next, I trundle back to the blog for some other articles of interest.

First off, papers have been filed with arguments against there being a Big Bang.   NASA's Dawn spacecraft is just a few days out from Ceres.  I found an article where on the surface it seems like such a simple and straight-forward question.  Given that there were no obstacles, would you take a trip into space?

Finally our story for the after-noon is a spooky tale of loneliness and wish fulfillment.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

RIP: Leonard Nimoy @ 83

 Leonard Nimoy, well known, talented and beloved character actor, died Friday at the age of  83.   A family member told CNN that Nimoy succumbed  due to complications brought on by
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Nimoy is probably best remembered for his depiction of the green, pointed eared alien - Spock - in the 1960 television series (and later feature movies) Star Trek. 

His is survived by cast members  William Shatner, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei and Walter Koenig                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
Takei wrote "We return you now to the stars, Leonard. You taught us to 'Live Long And Prosper,' and you indeed did, friend," .

Read the CNN article Here

RIP: Jason Kahn

It is with great sadness that I report that one of BMU's most favored authors, Jason Kahn, has succumbed after a valiant 18 month battle with brain cancer, at the age of 45. 

Jason as you know has been with Beam Me Up for several years now with his ongoing story arc 'In Plain Sight'.   One of his last projects was to make sure that his series IPS, which was part of the Dark Inspectre series, was finished and up to date.  So that fans of Beam Me Up could enjoy the series well into 2015.

His passing will leave a large void in the heart of Beam Me Up and myself.  He will be greatly missed.

R.I.P. Jay Lake

 

Writer Jay Lake passed June 1 2014.  He lost his six year battle with colon cancer just five days short of his fiftieth birthday.

Jay was born  June 6, 1964 in Taipei, Taiwan China.  He grew up living and traveling in Asia, Africa and Europe. Jay graduating in high-school 1982 and graduated from the  University of Texas Austin in 1986. After college, Jay started a professional career in advertising and marketing in the high tech industry, which gave him exposure to technology  and trends.

In 2001 Jay made his publishing debut on the science fiction and fantasy scene. As he said, after 11 years of effort, he was an overnight success.  One of the most prolific writers in the genre, he has seen more than 300 short stories and 10 novels published. 

RIP: Scott Carpenter and Godspeed....

 

Outlived only by John Glenn, Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter  passed from us to the aether at the age of 88.   

Carpenter succumbed  due to medical complications arising from a recent stroke suffered last month. 

Carpenter was the second American astronaut to enter orbit - on May 24, 1962, when he piloted his Aurora 7 capsule to three orbits. During that flight, he became the first American to eat solid food in space.

As is always true, there is much in a man's life to be proud of, perhaps one of the most enthralling was his send off to John Glenn's flight, when he uttered in part .....God Speed, John Glenn.  

God Speed to you  Mr. Carpenter   God Speed

For more please read the NBC New article

RIP: Author Richard Matheson Passes

Listener Nelson sends in a heads up on the passing of one of the pillars of the science fiction entertainment field.  Author Richard Matheson, who's works include classics such as the 1954 sf/horror novel I Am Legend, which has been adapted to film no less than three times.  

Other film adaptations of  Matheson's works were The Shrinking Man, Hell House, What Dreams May Come among others.  Matheson also wrote for Rod Serling's  The Twilight Zone, with classic episodes "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" and "Steel" which the movie Real Steel was based in part on.  

Matheson  adapted his 1971 short story "Duel" as a screenplay which was promptly selected by a very young director  Steven Spielberg. 

Richard Matheson's pen was forever stilled on Sunday the 23 of June, at his home in Calabasas, Calif. He was 87.

RIP: Telegrams no more....

On July 14th 2013, India will send the world's last telegraph message.  

144 years after Samuel Morse sent the first message, India, the last country to still use the system will cease operation with its final message.  

The US had discontinued telegraph messaging several years ago, but India continued with its widely used system.  Recent counts put the number of daily messages at around 5 thousand.   Telegraphing simply can not compete with text messaging and email, for speed.  This is one of the contributing factor in the state run system that is incurring 23 million dollars in losses a year.  At its peak in 1985, 60 million telegrams were exchanged.  Now the Indian government is the primary user of telegrams, making up 65 percent of the market. However, the remaining 35 percent of users are the general public. 

Read the complete article here

John Karlin, Developer of All-Digit Dialing Dies at 94

As the home phone is posed to slowly fade into oblivion, many of us are unaware of the process that took the home phone from the realm of operator controlled call centers to completely automated digital call handling.  

Before John Karlin call handling had transformed from operators to mechanical switches.  But in the decades following WWII the number of home based private numbers outpaced the mechanical switch centers ability to absorb them.  

Enter the DTMF system or Dual Tone Multi Frequency dialing which mixes two tones to represent a single number and as little as five frequencies mixed to produce 0 thru 9 plus room for two special keys.  This technology allowed the call centers to transit to filters and digital switches and the ability to handle substantially more calls. 

But the shift to the new system required a paradigm shift in the design of the phone. 

From the article:

• The rectangular design of the keypad, the shape of its buttons and the position of the numbers — with “1-2-3” on the top row instead of the bottom, as on a calculator — all sprang from empirical research conducted or overseen by Mr. Karlin. 

2013 is the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the touch-tone phone.  In those 50 years, Karlin's designs have affected many more technologies than the phone.  The keyboard design alone has become innocuous  finding itself incorporated in dissimilar items as the microwave oven to cellular phones.   And to consider that John Karlin made such stunning contributions to the very nature of how we use technology was virtually unknown outside his field.  

Original article in the New York Times 2/8/13 by By Margalit Fox

submitted by xnewsman

RIP: Dyer Brainerd Holmes

Dyer Brainerd Holmes, director of NASA's manned spaceflight and crucial  advocate for later Apollo program has died at 91 of complications from pneumonia, said a family member.  

Mr. Holmes only spend a couple of years with NASA.  During that time however,  Holmes oversaw the the formation of the original “Mercury Seven”, which included John Glenn who became the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth,  plus seeing the formation of the follow on projects Gemini and Apollo. 

Holmes abruptly resigned his position in 1963, reportedly because of meddling by NASA administrator James E. Webb.

Read the complete Washington Post article HERE

RIP: Neal Armstrong

The commander and the first human to ever set foot on another world died 8/25/12 from complications from heart surgery. He was 82 years old.

Armstrong made his history making foot print July 21, 1969, this however was not his first space record. During his first mission in space, he performed the first manned docking of two spacecraft, during the Gemini 8 mission in 1966, with pilot David Scott.

Apollo 11 was his second and last space flight.

Armstrong's surgery took place on August 7, 2012, to relieve blocked coronary arteries. He died on August 25, following complications from the surgery. President Barack Obama released a statement calling Armstrong "among the greatest of American heroes – not just of his time, but of all time

RIP: Harry Harrison

r Harry Harrison passed away Wednesday 8/1512 at the age of 87.

Wiki reports that Harrison wrote more than 50 novels, but he will always be best known for the Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! which was the basis for the film staring Charlton Heston called Soylent Green.

He is survived by his two children two children, Todd and Moira

Beam Me Up episode 317 is now online

I speak for a moment about the loss of Author Ray Bradbury. Then we travel over to New Arden and it’s very special detective. In Plain Sight by Jason Kahn.

From the blog, new battery tech that talks about new battery tech that may allow three as much power through the battery with less material. Earth/ Sky has an article on asteroids that have the potential to do great harm to the Earth. The amount of these asteroids will astound and frightening. Nelson from New Farmer Films then joins us for an excellent review of the movie “the Avengers.

Finally I once again tap Ed McKeown for a great story. He certainly delivers well as is born out in part one of his story “There was a wild colonial boy” I will hazard a guess that this too is a great story.

Enjoy

RIP: Ray Bradbury passes at 91

Don Smith sends in this article.

• Ray Bradbury died in Los Angeles, California, on June 5, 2012. He was 91. 
• I remember his writings well, as Bradbury, Clark, and Asimov sent a lot of us down roads we may never have looked down without them. One thing of interest to note, is that this great author of speculate and science fiction never got a drivers license. Apparently he saw a horrific crash when he was young. 
• Even trying to start with any book or story written by him would lead to a list that could not be put on here. For me I guess it would be The Martian Chronicles, and Fahrenheit 451 that come to mind first. 
• But he was involved in so many screen plays, and adaptions that to pick a true favorite is almost impossible there. 
• He will be greatly missed by the sci-fi community and the world is just a bit lonelier now.

Don     I do not even in my wildest imagination think I could do a better job.  Or encapsulate my appreciation for the enjoyment Bradbury has brought me over the years.   Yes he most certainly will be missed and the science fiction/fantasy fields are so much worse for the absence.   

Click the article title for the wiki article

RIP: Joe Simon, Creator of Captain America Has Died at 98

Joe Simon with fan @ NY comic con

 

 

Airlock Alpha reports that Joe Simon has passed at 98. Along with Jack Kirby, Simon created, during the years leading up to WW2, one of the most iconic comic book heroes to date, Captain America.

Joe Simon was born in 1913 in Rochester, N.Y under the name Hymie Simon.

His partner Kirby, who died in 94, interestingly enough often partnered with Stan Lee at Timely comics, the forerunner to today's Marvel to create such characters as, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men and the Hulk. Simon however moved to the company that would later become DC comics, for the balance of his prewar years.

Captain America was the first comic book hero to move to other medias with a film serial created in 1944.

Simon's last public appearance was in October at New York Comic-Con.

RIP: Anne McCaffrey

There are times when no matter what you want to say, it just doesn't seem to be enough or even right. I can tell you that an image comes to mind of a distant weyr that is strangely quiet.

I read on Boing Boing that the creator of Pern and it's wonderful dragons, Anne McCaffrey has gone between.

From all of us here, condolences to Todd McCaffrey and the rest of Anne's family.

Here is the Wiki link

RIP: Jeff Conaway of Babylon 5 fame

Airlock Alpha reports that Jeff Conaway, best known to genre fans as Security Chief Zack Allen on the syndicated series Babylon 5, died May 27th at 60 after being removed from life support.

Conaway was found unconcious in his home May 11 from what his doctors describe as complications from pneumonia and sepsis.

Complete Airlock Alpha article, Wiki article

RIP: William Campbell

Airlock Alpha reports that actor William Campbell died April 28th at the age of 84.
From the article:

• Campbell is probably best known to Trek fans as Trelane, the Q-like character who pestered the Enterprise crew in the 1967 episode "Squire of Gothos."
• He also appeared in one of "Star Trek's" other famed episodes, "The Trouble With Tribbles," playing the Klingon Koloth.

There is no question that Star Trek had a major influence on me growing up. I can trace a lot of that influence to several marked episodes like Squire. This episode just freaked me out for days. No question, he was doing Q before anyone even thought of Q. Good stuff.

RIP: Joanna Russ

Legendary feminist science fiction author Joanna Russ died April 30, 2011 after a series of strokes. She was 74. Russ was the author of The Female Man and many other science fiction classics.
From the Wikipedia:

• She is best known for The Female Man, a novel combining utopian fiction and satire. It used the device of parallel worlds to consider the ways that different societies might produce very different versions of the same person, and how all might interact and respond to sexism.

For more info on Russ

• Joanna Russ at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• NovelGuide.com Biography
• IMDB

RIP Irvin Kershner - Empire Strikes Back director

Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner has passed away at 87, according to a Yahoo News article sent in by Nelson. Kershner died Saturday at home following a 3 1/2-year battle with lung cancer.

Some of Kershner's other notable movie credits are: "Never Say Never Again, "A Fine Madness", "The Flim-Flam Man", "Loving", "The Eyes of Laura Mars", "Raid on Entebbe" which earned him an Emmy nomination for direction and Robocop 2 among many others.


Check out the complete Yahoo News article here

R.I.P. Leslie Nielsen

Legendary film and TV actor Leslie passed away 11/28/2010 at the age of 84, due to complications stemming from pneumonia.

Nielsen appeared in over 100 films and 1,500 television programs over the span of his career, portraying over 220 characters.

Maybe one of Neilson's best known genre appearance was as Commander John J. Adams, in the 1956 film "Forbidden Planet alongside acting notables such as Walter Pidgeon and Anne Francis.

Leslie Nielsen Wiki Forbidden Planet Wiki