new blog: According to Carl Sagan

There's a brand-new Sagan-related blog in town; topics in the 4 posts so far have ranged from the evolutionary origins of sports to neglected rocket pioneer Robert Goddard. Since Carl weighed in on a truly wide variety of topics, there should be plenty of material to blog about.

(Hat tip: Francois Tremblay; cross-posted to Celebrating Sagan)

Carl Sagan's Barsoomian blurb

I recently discovered that the back cover of the 2007 Penguin Classics edition of A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs has a prominent blurb by Carl Sagan: "Might it really be possible—in fact and not fancy—to venture with John Carter to the Kingdom of Helium on the planet Mars?" Although the cover does not specify the source of the quote, it's from the "Blues for a Red Planet" chapter from Cosmos; references to his being a fan of the John Carter books since first reading them as a kid appear scattered throughout Sagan's writings, including an anecdote about obtaining a related vanity plate (due to a limit of 6 letters per plate, he had to settle for "PHOBOS" instead of his first choice, "BARSOOM"). And this hasn't been the first time that Burroughsians have noticed Sagan; for instance, consider the Burroughs fansite ERBzine's lengthy tribute to Sagan.

I'd be happy to see more Sagan blurbs on other science fiction books; he had a generally favorable view of science fiction in general (with some caveats about scientific errors and the promotion of pseudoscience) and had nice things to say about quite a few science fiction classics in his writings, for instance in the essay "Science Fiction—A Personal View" in Broca's Brain, or the extended discussion in Pale Blue Dot (which I was quite surprised to see when first reading it) of a 1942 short story by Jack Williamson dealing with antimatter and asteroid colonization, "Collision Orbit" (which was incorporated into the fix-up novel Seetee Ship). (By the way, I've always wondered if the character Jane Carter in Williamson's The Humanoids was a Burroughs reference, with the character's teleportation abilities being a takeoff on Burroughs's use of astral projection to get John Carter to Mars.)

"Carl Sagan Lives On" livejournal community

As the title suggests, on LiveJournal, there's a community called "Carl Sagan Lives On", described as "an open community dedicated to the life, wisdom, and legacy of Carl Sagan." It's been running since 2003, with 94 posts in total; the number of posts has tapered off recently (only 6 posts in 2008), but maybe this post will encourage a few LiveJournal users to join up (after all, the news that Cosmos is on Hulu prompted the most recent post).

(This is the beginning of a few Carl Sagan-related posts that I'm cross-posting to Celebrating Sagan.)

Cosmos is now on Hulu

Well, the website which has become known for offering up full-length TV shows (and a few movies) for free, ad-supported viewing (with a selection including a good amount of genre shows from The Addams Family to Firefly, but very light on science shows, and no, this doesn't count) has added the complete run of Carl Sagan's TV series to the mix. I guess this needs no further explanation, but Hulu's description is nice, especially the final sentence:

In 1980, the landmark series Cosmos premiered on public television. Since then, it is estimated that more than a billion people around the planet have seen it. Cosmos chronicles the evolution of the planet and efforts to find our place in the universe. Each of the 13 episodes focuses on a specific aspect of the nature of life, consciousness, the universe and time. Topics include the origin of life on Earth (and perhaps elsewhere), the nature of consciousness, and the birth and death of stars. When it first aired, the series catapulted creator and host Carl Sagan to the status of pop culture icon and opened countless minds to the power of science and the possibility of life on other worlds.

The version of the series used seems to be the same as the 2000 DVD version; it's especially nice to have Ann Druyan's introduction at the beginning of the first episode, as well as the 1990 updates at the end of episodes like The Edge of Forever. (I'm guessing that the DVD music changes are still in there.) And unfortunately, the website is restricted to viewers in the United States.

Man, I can remember quite a few of the home video incarnations of the series, beginning back in the 1990s with occasionally seeing the humongous boxed set of the series on VHS (sometimes with a paperback of the book thrown in for good measure) in science museum gift shops and the like; being completely overjoyed to find a fraction of the show's run on 2-episodes-per-VHS tape at a Blockbuster; the DVD release in 2000 with gorgeous packaging, going for $100 or more; last year's iTunes release for $1.99 an episode; and now, finally, this. I wouldn't go quite so far as agreeing with John Scalzi's comment that "the Internet has just justified its existence" (and the hardcore fans have a copy already, although now they won't have to lend out their copy to friends), but it's definitely the next step.

And of course, the news kicks off another round of Sagan fans' reminiscing about the impact of Cosmos and Sagan (just as the iTunes release did a year ago), in blogs (I'm pointing to a blog search rather than try to pick out favorites) and comment threads like this one.

A libertarian letters to the editor response team?

I've been mulling over the idea of doing what it says in the title, motivated in part by this misguided take on Herbert Spencer ... details here.

Mystery Quote of the Day

Guess who wrote this:

One of the odd features of a capitalist system is how socialist it is. Firms interact with customers and other firms through the decentralized machinery of trade. But firms themselves are miniature socialist states, hierarchical organizations controlled, at least in theory, by orders from above.

The answer.

I'm back to blogging

Well, after unofficially taking a month-long "vacation" from blogging during January, I'm trying to get back to posting on a regular schedule, and am aiming to post something (even if it's just something as short as a quote) daily for the rest of the month.