I've written a new Avengers story: Where it is always 1965

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3996735/1/Where_It_Is_Always_1965

It's the start of a new series of stories - but is complete in itself.

I've finished the initial set of screencaps for my Peter Wyngarde
tribute site.

http://thethunderchild.com/VolcanoSeven/HellfireHall/

The old standbys - Epic, A Touch of Brimstone and The Man Who Liked
Lions.

Also screencaps from Let's Kill Karlovassi - an episode of I Spy.
(Americans can watch this on Amazon Unbox, a free player. Cost $1.99
to buy the episode, which downloads to your computer. Not available in
England.) The episode is quite enjoyable, for all that Peter's skin
is darkened to appear Greek and he speaks with a (good) Greek accent.
He gets to display quite a wide range of emotions throughout the
episode.

I'll be adding screencaps from the Prisoner: Checkmate next week.

My 7-part story Emma in Monte Carlo is complete and available to read
at:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3937321/1/Emma_By_Gaslight

(The old title is Emma By Gaslight.)

Emma and Jason King have an adventure.

Well I emailed them in April and got this reply:

Hi Charlotte,

Thank you for your email.  We are still in the process of confirming
and sorting out this exhibition - I am meeting with the collector in a
couple of weeks time - so I should be able to fill you in around that
time.

I will contact you agin in a few weeks.

Best wishes,
Kate Loubser.


But I haven't heard anything else.  I suppose I had better email her
back again!







--- In Ransack@yahoogroups.com, "Regina" <reglava@...> wrote:
>
> Are you sure?  I checked the linked site and could not find any info.
> Are you going to go? Give a report? Would be fun to go if I could.
> --- In Ransack@yahoogroups.com, "dsdanscott" <dsdanscott@> wrote:
> >
> > Apparently and exhibition of Avengers artifacts including
> > toys/costumes/posters/records/promo items/props etc from the
classic
> > 60s Avengers series through to the 1998 movie is being held at the
> > Worthing Museum and Art Centre later this year. Details of the
event
> > may be available by contacting them
> > http://www.worthing.gov.uk/Leisure/MuseumampArtGallery/
> >
>

I emailed them again about this and this was sadly the reply I got:

"Hi Charlotte,

I'm afraid this exhibition has had to be cancelled.  We may have the
exhibition another year but at the moment we have nothing planned
beyond 2008.

Best wishes,
Kate."

Knickers, I shall go and sulk now.



--- In Ransack@yahoogroups.com, "Regina" <reglava@...> wrote:
>
> Are you sure?  I checked the linked site and could not find any info.
> Are you going to go? Give a report? Would be fun to go if I could.
> --- In Ransack@yahoogroups.com, "dsdanscott" <dsdanscott@> wrote:
> >
> > Apparently and exhibition of Avengers artifacts including
> > toys/costumes/posters/records/promo items/props etc from the
classic
> > 60s Avengers series through to the 1998 movie is being held at the
> > Worthing Museum and Art Centre later this year. Details of the
event
> > may be available by contacting them
> > http://www.worthing.gov.uk/Leisure/MuseumampArtGallery/
> >
>

Are you sure?  I checked the linked site and could not find any info.
Are you going to go? Give a report? Would be fun to go if I could.
--- In Ransack@yahoogroups.com, "dsdanscott" <dsdanscott@...> wrote:
>
> Apparently and exhibition of Avengers artifacts including
> toys/costumes/posters/records/promo items/props etc from the classic
> 60s Avengers series through to the 1998 movie is being held at the
> Worthing Museum and Art Centre later this year. Details of the event
> may be available by contacting them
> http://www.worthing.gov.uk/Leisure/MuseumampArtGallery/
>

Apparently and exhibition of Avengers artifacts including
toys/costumes/posters/records/promo items/props etc from the classic
60s Avengers series through to the 1998 movie is being held at the
Worthing Museum and Art Centre later this year. Details of the event
may be available by contacting them
http://www.worthing.gov.uk/Leisure/MuseumampArtGallery/

Just finished reading a slim volume called Miss Leavitt's Stars: The
Untold Story of the Woman who Discovered How to Measure The
Universe, by George Johnson. WW Norton. 2005.

July 4, 1868 – December 12, 1921: Died from stomach cancer at the
age of 53.

First I present below the (non-copyrighted) info from Wikipedia -
just because it is more succinct than the information scattered
throughout Johnson's book.

...Leavitt began work in 1893 at Harvard College Observatory as one
of the women "computers" brought in by Edward Charles Pickering to
measure and catalog the brightness of stars in the observatory's
photographic plate collection. She noted thousands of variable stars
in images of the Magellanic Clouds. In 1908 she published her
results in the Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard
College, noting that a few of the variables showed a pattern:
brighter ones appeared to have longer periods. After further study,
she confirmed in 1912 that the variable stars of greater intrinsic
luminosity—actually Cepheid variables—did indeed have longer
periods, and the relationship was quite close and predictable.

This relationship provided an important yardstick for measuring
distances in the Universe, if it could be calibrated. One year after
Leavitt reported her results, Ejnar Hertzsprung determined the
distance of several Cepheids in the Milky Way, and with this
calibration the distance to any Cepheid could be determined. When
Cepheids were detected in other galaxies such as the Andromeda
Galaxy, the distance to those galaxies could also be determined.
These distances settled the debate on whether the galaxies were
external to the Milky Way or part of it.

Leavitt worked sporadically during her time at Harvard, often
sidelined by health problems and family obligations. But by 1921,
when Harlow Shapley took over as director of the observatory, she
was head of stellar photometry. She succumbed to cancer by the end
of that year.

Little is known about Leavitt's life, according to Johnson, and
indeed in his own book, of 130 pages (not including 30 pages of
acknowledgements, notes, bibliography and index), she gets at the
most about 10 pages worth of text. Unfortunately, Leavitt left no
diaries and few letters, for anyone to do research into her life.

Johnson's title is a misnomer, therefore, specifically used jut to
draw in those people who want to read about the lives of pioneer
women scientists (i.e., me) - most of the book deals with the use
male astronomers (Pickering, Shapley) made of her work.

The book is by no means uninteresting, it explains the astronomical
principals of parallax and the Cepheids, etc. in simple language -
it's just annoying that so little time is devoted to Leavitt -
although apparently this is unavoidable because of the scarcity of
information about her private life. However, it would've been
interesting to learn more about the other female "computers" at the
observatory - who made 30 cents a *day* doing the comparison work
from which great discoveries were announced by the astronomers.

Just finished reading a slim volume called Miss Leavitt's Stars: The
Untold Story of the Woman who Discovered How to Measure The
Universe, by George Johnson. WW Norton. 2005.

July 4, 1868 – December 12, 1921: Died from stomach cancer at the
age of 53.

First I present below the (non-copyrighted) info from Wikipedia -
just because it is more succinct than the information scattered
throughout Johnson's book.

...Leavitt began work in 1893 at Harvard College Observatory as one
of the women "computers" brought in by Edward Charles Pickering to
measure and catalog the brightness of stars in the observatory's
photographic plate collection. She noted thousands of variable stars
in images of the Magellanic Clouds. In 1908 she published her
results in the Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard
College, noting that a few of the variables showed a pattern:
brighter ones appeared to have longer periods. After further study,
she confirmed in 1912 that the variable stars of greater intrinsic
luminosity—actually Cepheid variables—did indeed have longer
periods, and the relationship was quite close and predictable.

This relationship provided an important yardstick for measuring
distances in the Universe, if it could be calibrated. One year after
Leavitt reported her results, Ejnar Hertzsprung determined the
distance of several Cepheids in the Milky Way, and with this
calibration the distance to any Cepheid could be determined. When
Cepheids were detected in other galaxies such as the Andromeda
Galaxy, the distance to those galaxies could also be determined.
These distances settled the debate on whether the galaxies were
external to the Milky Way or part of it.

Leavitt worked sporadically during her time at Harvard, often
sidelined by health problems and family obligations. But by 1921,
when Harlow Shapley took over as director of the observatory, she
was head of stellar photometry. She succumbed to cancer by the end
of that year.

Little is known about Leavitt's life, according to Johnson, and
indeed in his own book, of 130 pages (not including 30 pages of
acknowledgements, notes, bibliography and index), she gets at the
most about 10 pages worth of text. Unfortunately, Leavitt left no
diaries and few letters, for anyone to do research into her life.

Johnson's title is a misnomer, therefore, specifically used jut to
draw in those people who want to read about the lives of pioneer
women scientists (i.e., me) - most of the book deals with the use
male astronomers (Pickering, Shapley) made of her work.

The book is by no means uninteresting, it explains the astronomical
principals of parallax and the Cepheids, etc. in simple language -
it's just annoying that so little time is devoted to Leavitt -
although apparently this is unavoidable because of the scarcity of
information about her private life. However, it would've been
interesting to learn more about the other female "computers" at the
observatory - who made 30 cents a *day* doing the comparison work
from which great discoveries were announced by the astronomers.

I just check my mail today and I see that yahoo has sent the same
message 10 times... bizarre.

I'll delete them from the archives and let's hope it doesn't happen
again!

Delmarva stands for Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, and is the name
for the peninsula that extends downbetween Chhesapeake Bay and the
Atlantic ocean. It contains the entire state of Delaware and the
easternmost parts of Maryland and Virginia (Assateague and
Chincoteague Islands.)

Not really my cup of tea - a book on the various animals and plants
living in the various habitats on the peninsusla. But interesting
and sad reading to learn of how many species of plants and animals
were - and are being - destroyed by mankind's depredations.

It is perhaps hard to criticize people of the 1600s-1800s for the
mass destruction they brought about, but from the 1900s onward
surely common sense should have told them that they were destroying
things that could not be replaced.

I'm one of those people who think animals have a right to live - and
I care more for animals than people in the sense that animals don't
have the brains to save themselves should their coastline become
polluted or their bodies get stuck in a fishing net. Meanwhile,
human beings have brains and should be able to see the consequences
of their action - from overfishing to destruction of aqifers to
their own overpopulation of this planet.

Anyway, people who are interested in nature who live on the east
coast will probably enjoy the book...meantime I'm glad to be done
with it and will be moving onto one of my aviation books now... so
yes...the work of saving the environment - thought I praise it -
will have to be done by someone else.... typical, I know...

The first books of Smith's I ever read were his Lensman series...more
years ago than I care to remember. Good thing, too, because if I'd
started with his Skylark series first I never would have continued
with him as an author... but I love the Lensman books.

>>So....what are you guys reading???

Currently reading, in the fiction category, the original Triplanetary,
by E.E. "Doc" Smith. I hadn't realized that when Smith first wrote
this story, it wasn't part of his "Lensman" series. He rewrote it as a
novel and expanded it with bits and pieces of the Arisians and the
Eddorians to fit it into the Lensman universe.

I'm comparing the original and the rewrite - it makes for interesting
reading!

I went to my local library today and as is my habit, checked out a
ton of books even though I don't have time to read more than one or
two of them. I guess I hope the information in the rest of them will
seep into me via osmosis...

I was at a different library today - but in the same region for my
library card. Both my libraries are small 'sub' libraries with
perhaps 20-30 books on each non-fiction subject - across the whole
range of the subject, not on each discipline *in* a subject...so
usually there is slim pickings and I get most of my books through
interlibrary loan.

But, I hadn't browsed through this library before and saw plenty of
interesting books, but contented myself with only a few:

Women of the Air, Judy Lomax, 1987 - history of women pilots,
balloonists, etc.
Women in Space, Carole S. Briggs, 1999
Women With Wings, Jacqueline McLean, 2001
----common thread here being of course female pilots. Astronauts,
etc. I'll be compiling a database of these women for Gale Force -
the website for Avengerous women that I hope to launch properly one
day....

Miss Leavitt's Stars, George Johnson, 2005 - biography of Henrietta
Leavitt, the female "computer" who "discovered how to measure the
universe."

Great Feuds in Science : Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever. Hal
Hellman. 1998. Including Urban VIII vs Galileo, Newton vs Leibniz,
Wallis vs Hobbes (of Calvin and Hobbes fame), Voltaire vs Needham
(have no idea, thought Voltaire was a playwright), Darwin's Bulldog
vs Soapy Sam, Lord Kelvin vs geologists and biologists, Cope vs
Marsh, Wegener vs everybody, Johanson vs Leakeys, Derek Freeman vs
Margaret Mead.)

Between Ocean and Bay: A Natural History of Delmarva - selected not
only because it's about an area in Virginia (where I live) but
because I'm also interested in oceanography and geology...

So hopefully if I structure my time right in the next week I can
both read and compile info from all these books.

So....what are you guys reading???

Pretty interesting book.

The only thing that bugged me about it is the same thing that bugs
me about a lot of scientific books - they tell us "the way things
were" back in prehistoric times, but they never tell us *how* they
know.

Presumably it's all in the fossil record... fossils appear in one
layer of strata, and disappear in subsequent layers - but is that
their sole proof for various of their theories?

For example I always thought that Pangaea had been the original
world continent and then split apart into what we have now...but not
so according to a couple of books - continents actually split apart
twice.  How do they know???

Anyway, good book, recommended. Again, for those not paying
attention - it's about the meteor that struck and created Chesapeake
Bay, Virginia, several million years ago, not about non-native
wildlife invading and ruining Chesapeake Bay - which *is* happening,
but wasn't the subject of this book! Bad title!

Well, now we're up to 6 members plus me, your friendly moderator!
Well, it always takes a while for a new list to take off...

Anyway, I continue to read Chesapeake Invader, sneaking in a few
minutes here and there to read it as I have several other projects on
hand at the moment...

Please don't hesitate to post your own list of books your reading.
Even if you don't want to discuss any of them... you might list a
title others would find interesting...

It's linked here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMov2wHuq_o

--- In Ransack@yahoogroups.com, "B. A. Peterson" <galeforce_1962@...>
wrote:
>
> --- In Ransack@yahoogroups.com, "dsdanscott" <dsdanscott@> wrote:
> >
> > Coming 2007
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVHMUf0oWjA
> >
>
> Well, I saw it this morning... and it stopped 2/3rds of the way
> through.  I assume that's why is has now been removed? You're fixing
> it?
>

--- In Ransack@yahoogroups.com, "dsdanscott" <dsdanscott@...> wrote:
>
> Coming 2007
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVHMUf0oWjA
>

Well, I saw it this morning... and it stopped 2/3rds of the way
through.  I assume that's why is has now been removed? You're fixing
it?

Coming 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVHMUf0oWjA

Here's a list of the books I checked out of the library to read in
March... I don't have time to read any of them but the hope is there...

Beneath the Metropolis, by Alex Marshall
"A fascinating examination of 12 of the world's greatest cities via
the hidden world beneath our feet."
Detailed are New York, Chicago, San Francisco. Mexico City, Paris,
Rome, London, Moscow, Tokyo, Cairo, Beijing and Sydney.

I'm surprised Seattle isn't included since apparently it's a city
built on top of another city...but maybe Kolchak: The Night Strangler
lied about that....

Our Country, Right or Wrong: The life of Stephen Decature the US
Navy's Most Illustrious Commander, Leonard F. Guttridge

Jamestown: The Buried Truth: From the lead archaeologist who unearthed
the secrets of America's birthplace. William M. Kelso
I've been reading up on Jamestown as 2007 is the 400th anniversary of
its founding, and I live about 30 minutes away from it.

The Intellectual Devotional: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education
and Roam Cnfidently with the cultured class.
365 pages, each with a piece of information on one of 7 subjects:
History, Literature, Visual Arts, Science, Music, Philosophy, Religion

and a fiction book

Blindsight, by Peter Watts
2 months since 65,000 alien objects circled the earth...now something
is approaching
(a very brief, truncated description - it sounds interesting though so
if you're into sci fi, check it out from your local library.

Began reading: March 16, 2007

The title of a book is one of the most important things about it.
Along with the cover. If the cover of a science fiction adventure
consists of an amateurishly drawn individual waving an improbably
weapon, it's not likely to give the casual browser any confidence
that the text inside is any less amateurish.

Well, I'm reading Chesapeake Invader. Now, anyone who just looks at
that title might think that it's about some kind of non-native
species invading Chesapeake Bay, or even the early Caucasians
invading the land of the native Indians.

However, that's not the case. This is a book about the impact of a
meteor in Chesapeake Bay 50 million years ago, and how it was found.

I've only read two chapters so far, but it's pretty good. Lots of
illustrations that show things in a very clear way so that the
layperson can understand them, and well written.

So despite the title, this is a book that anyone around the world
can read with interest, because of its subject matter.

Hi, all

INTRODUCTION

Very gratifying to see two people here when I just posted the URL a
couple of hours ago.

My name's Barbara, I'm your friendly neighborhood moderator and
owner of this list.

All "new members" are on Moderation. This means that your first post
(and you will all be posting, wont' you?) will not show up until
after I read it and make sure it's legitimate and not some kind of
spam. After that I'll take each member off moderation, so all posts
will then s how up immediately.

When I originally set up this mailing list, it was to discuss The
Avengers without having to bother about spammers. However, inthe
subsequent hours, I've decided to expand the purview, and I hope it
will still retain your interest. I also hope that because of the
expanded purpose, we'll get a lot of members who will actually post
instead of lurk.

As all Avengers fans will know, the name Ransack comes from The
Master Minds, in which Ransack was a group where highly intelligent
people got together to discuss everything under the sun, and try to
solve problems.

Well, there are no membership tests here, anyone is welcome who
wishes to exercise their brain, and feels that education does not
stop once one gets out of school/college - but goes on always.
(Indeed, for some people, real education begins after they leave
school, as, with the state of schools today, it's hard to learn
anything there!)

Anyway, so in addition to the Avengers, what I'd like to discuss
here is such things as non-fiction books on the various sciences,
history, etc., just a clearing house for information, for
discussion, etc.

I'm currently rewriting the groups's description, and then I'll
have  a post or two to make on a book I'm reading called Chesapeake
Invader, which I hope will start the group off on the right note.