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“Which way to the eclipse?” Photo by Andra C Taylor Jr on Unsplash
Solar eclipse coming to your town April 8!
This is a public service announcement that a total solar eclipse will be occurring across much of the United States, as well as parts of Canada and Mexico, on April 8, 2024. I’ve seen two total eclipses in recent years. If you can get yourself into the path of totality (where the sun in completely blocked by the moon) it will be worth your while. Areas outside the zone of totality will experience a partial eclipse — but it ain’t the same thing.
Great American Eclipse: Lots of details and helpful graphics
2024 Total Eclipse: Where & When: NASA’s informative eclipse page
The total solar eclipse will be visible along a narrow track stretching from Texas to Maine on April 8, 2024. A partial eclipse will be visible throughout all 48 contiguous U.S. states. Image: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
From NASA:
The Monday, April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse will cross North America, passing over Mexico, the United States, and Canada. The total solar eclipse will begin over the South Pacific Ocean. Weather permitting, the first location in continental North America that will experience totality is Mexico’s Pacific coast at around 11:07 a.m. PDT.
The path of the eclipse continues from Mexico, entering the United States in Texas, and traveling through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. The eclipse will enter Canada in Southern Ontario, and continue through Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Cape Breton. The eclipse will exit continental North America on the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada, at 5:16 p.m. NDT.
And if you really want to plan ahead here are all the total solar eclipses out to 2066:
Here’s Where You Can See Every Total Solar Eclipse for the Next 50 Years
Nanobots vs cancer
This is a cool story because it combines two of my favorite topics: nanobots and zapping cancer. The only thing it’s missing is lasers!
Revolutionary ‘nanodrones’ target and eliminate cancer cells
The article gets very sciencey, very fast — “The UNIST team’s breakthrough, named NKeNDs (NK cell-engaging nanodrones), utilizes a kind of nanoparticle known as the AaLS protein cage” Yes. Obviously. — but the top line is this:
South Korean researchers from the Ulsan Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) have developed a cutting-edge method to treat cancer using tiny, specialized devices called “nanodrones.” These revolutionary nanodrones are engineered to specifically target and destroy cancer cells.
Go, nanobots, go!
Changing the past, continued
Last week we discussed several items related to the theme of changing past works, be it novels, films, albums, documentary footage, animation, etc.
We left off with this item: They Shall Not Grow Postmodern: How Digital Trickery Is Changing How We View WWI, WWII & Swinging London
The article concludes with this:
In 2024, digitally processing film and video images, and digitally demixing and remixing audio are each a technology that is in its infancy. Both technologies will only become exponentially more powerful. Going forward, they each have the potential to make 20th century film and audio much more accessible to each generation of audiences. But as we move further and further away from their underlying source material, how much will we be giving up of their original authenticity, often unknowingly? How will future audiences take the postmodern trickery for granted? Will future audiences eventually rebel against what they’re being offered for something more authentic and honest? (I’d like to be wrong, but who am I kidding with that last question?)
I thought the author’s questions were worth pondering. I think we do lose something when we alter works from the past to fit contemporary tastes, aesthetic preferences, and sensibilities.
Certainly attitudes on many topics have changed from decade to decade, even century to century. I prefer to read a book or watch a film or consume other works of art as they were originally presented, inasmuch as possible. Something is lost when present custodians of past works — editors, publishers, etc. — make alterations, whether you call that a loss of authenticity, fidelity, or simply a hijacking of the original creator’s work.
A recent example comes from the British Film Institute, which has decided to add so-called “trigger warnings” to older James Bond films that the prudes at BFI imagine may give offense.
James Bond slapped with 'trigger warning' as modern audiences warned 007 franchise may 'cause offence'
Classic James Bond films could offend modern audiences, the BFI has said.
The organisation, which screens films in its Southbank location in London and is tasked with preserving British cinema, has put the warning across a host of movies in the Ian Fleming-created franchise.
But audiences are not only being warned beforehand that they may offend today's viewers - but that they caused offence when they were first released.
The BFI has warned on its website: "Please note that many of these films contain language, images or other content that reflect views prevalent in its time, but will cause offence today (as they did then).
"The titles are included here for historical, cultural or aesthetic reasons and these views are in no way endorsed by the BFI or its partners."
To be fair, BFI isn’t altering the films, merely interposing their editorial comment during screenings of the films. But even that is a step in the wrong direction. And the current publishers of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels have been less circumspect:
James Bond books rewritten to remove ‘offensive’ references
Racial references have been removed from Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels following a sensitivity review.
Were the removed references offensive? Almost certainly.
But that's what Fleming wrote. The fact that the author would use, and the publisher would publish, such terms and express such attitudes in a book written for a popular audience in the 1950s or 1960s when these books were first released in and of itself tells us something of society at that time. If we scrub the text to erase the evidence of past prejudices, then we also scrub away an accurate understanding of the times in which that work was created.
That said, I can see that there might be a market for the bowdlerized version of things. It is difficult to fault publishers for trying to make a buck. However, the availability of the original versions, warts and all, should be preserved too.
Alteration and preservation are incompatible. But both are culturally important.
That’s the value of allowing past works to enter the public domain after a period under copyright. People can enjoy the original works, and at the same time new creators can draw on that pool of past creativity make new works. It’s win-win.
I started the whole discussion last week by relating how I set out to re-release my first novel, Jason Cosmo, which had gone out of print, and ended up making so many revision that I decided it needed to be treated as a new book with a new title, Hero Wanted (Print | Kindle).
But to complete the circle, after I released Hero Wanted I heard from readers who wanted to know if I was going to make the original version available too.
So I did exactly that. I released the original text of Jason Cosmo and its two sequels as ebooks. I think the Hero Wanted version is improved in some ways. But readers can read either or both versions and decide for themselves which they prefer.
And that is as it should be.
Shameless plug — you can get all three books of the original Jason Cosmo Non-Trilogy in an omnibus ebook edition. Cover artist: Richard Hescox
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