Hello there Reader! I hope you're having a great week.

How's the writing going, you ask? Not too badly, thanks! Steady forward progress is what we love to see, and after the reset I mentioned in the last newsletter, that's what we're getting.

The same can be said for the seasons, steadily marching towards winter. We've had a few days of cold, rain and wind as I write this, and while we do sometimes get a random warm day towards the end of September, it's becoming clear that summer here was a bit of a damp squib. We had a handful of very hot days, but otherwise it's been a lot more like a typical English Summer - cooler than you might like, wetter, and above all unpredictable. There are all sorts of old wives' tales about predicting the nature of the upcoming winter based on what the summer was like - but frankly all best are off with the climate at the moment.

So we'll keep the pantry stocked, gloves and hats where we can easily grab them, and take advantage of the darker evenings to read, write, and explore new worlds.

What's your favourite ritual for the autumn months? That weird limbo before Halloween and 'Spooky Season' can feel a bit grey, so what do you like to do to liven things up?

Space News

The Golden Age of Astrobiology

I was fascinated by this interview with Nathalie Cabrol, author of 'The Secret life of the Universe' and director of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe at the SETI Institute. She claims that we're in a golden age of astrobiology, despite having never found any evidence of life beyond the Earth. And this despite not even having a definition of what 'life' itself actually is that is much better than 'I'll know it when I see it'.

And I have to agree with her. She explains that we're finding more and more planets that aren't actively hostile to life (even if we are a long way from finding any evidence of life), and that our technology is advancing at such a pace that it's surely just a matter of time until we are able to detect life signs somewhere else in the universe.

It's a short interview, but an interesting one. She touches on the use of AI in SETI - and while that might be contentious, there's no denying that machine learning can spot patterns and signs that we might miss with other techniques. It sounds as though the people working on it are aware of the dangers of AI hallucinations, and sensibly using it as just another tool in the toolbox. If any suggestion of ETI is found, there will need to be so many checks and counter-checks that there's no room for mistakes.

Her book sounds interesting, and I'll definitely be picking up a copy. What do you think? Are we on the brink of discovering life in the universe?

Source: scientificamerican.com

Other Books To Check Out

https://ares.watch/z/B00KAFLRT8

Alternative History Steampunk at its best.

The computer age has arrived a century ahead of time with Charles Babbage's perfection of his Analytical Engine. The Industrial Revolution, supercharged by the development of steam-driven cybernetic Engines, is in full and drastic swing. Great Britain, with her calculating-cannons, steam dreadnoughts, machine-guns and information technology, prepares to better the world's lot...

https://ares.watch/z/B0CNF12VGM

An Astrobiologist's Search for the Origins and Frontiers of Life

Over the last few decades, space exploration has revolutionised our understanding of our place in the cosmos. We now know that there are many habitable environments within our solar system. Yet a profound question remains: are we alone in the universe?

Nathalie A. Cabrol, leading astrobiologist and director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute, takes us to the frontiers of the search for life. This book's odyssey begins by searching for how life began on Earth in order to understand what's necessary for life to exist elsewhere. What role did our moon play? And could life on Mars, or another world, have seeded life on Earth?

https://ares.watch/z/0141981539

The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer

Meet two of Victorian London's greatest geniuses... Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron: mathematician, gambler, and proto-programmer, whose writings contained the first ever appearance of general computing theory, a hundred years before an actual computer was built. And Charles Babbage, eccentric inventor of the Difference Engine, an enormous clockwork calculating machine that would have been the first computer, if he had ever finished it.

Strange News

The Mysterious Visit of Mr Babbage

Bruce Sterling is a name that ought to be familiar to SciFi fans. He co-wrote 'The Difference Engine' with another noted modern SciFi author William Gibson, imagining a world where the Information Revolution kicked off at the same time as the Industrial Revolution, with Charles Babbage's Difference Engine actually being created and used, magnifying the power of the British Empire enormously. It's a great 'what if' book, and well worth checking out.

Naturally he knows a thing or two about Babbage, as a result. So it's worth listening when he proposes a rather curious tale about why Babbage was presenting his plans for an Analytical Engine to the King of Sardegna in Torino in 1840.

Now, a bare reading of the facts might lead you to the interpretation that most people have: Babbage had been paid by the British Admiralty to build his Difference Engine, but got so excited by the promise of the next generation technology (the Analytical Engine) that he abandoned it. Ostracised by British society, he sought funding wherever he could. Ultimately neither machine was built until 1990, when the Science Museum in London used Babbage's plans to create a working example.

Curiously, the only changes they had to make were to change some minor errors which might well have been introduced by Babbage as a form of copy-protection, to prevent someone stealing the plans and implementing them. It's unheard of for a mechanical plan to be that accurate, that easily implemented, without at least a trial phase and a lot of troubleshooting.

So had Babbage actually made one? In secret, for a foreign power?

Admittedly, it's very unlikely. But Sterling's reasoning is very persuasive. Why were no awkward questions asked about Babbage's alleged embezzling of British Government funds? Why were the secret police so involved? Could it have been done, and kept secret?

Source: bruces.medium.com

Other Books To Check Out

Miscellany

Have you heard about the 'mini-moon' lately? It's not as rare as you might have been told.

Source: Atlas Obscura

The Densest City In The World Had a Strange Secret...

Source: youtube.com

Did you know stereoscopes used to be as popular as TV is today?

Source: daily.jstor.org

And Finally

I'm working on an explainer video about AI, particularly in relation to writing.

I've previously done one on DRM, wherein I pointed out that it doesn't do what it's meant to, and in fact hurts the people who play by the rules. (You can watch it here if you like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZVQQMcudRA).

AI is one of the hottest topics at the moment, and there is a lot of confusion about what it is (and isn't), so I feel it's something I need to clarify my opinion about. I've done that in text on my website (https://markhoodauthor.com/ai/ - tl;dr I don't use it) but I do fancy creating a video explainer too. Video lets me go into greater depth, I feel, while that website page is meant more as a policy statement about my own non-use of the technology.

But I am curious what you think? Do you like AI tools? Do you use them? If so, what for - and what does it help you with? Do you worry that it'll start working its way into the things you enjoy? Are you concerned you might download a book or a movie one day and find out it was made without any human involvement?

I'd love to hear from you.

Source: youtube.com