David Dvorkin @DavidDvorkin@qoto.org

#introduction
Before retiring, I was an aerospace engineer (Apollo, Viking Mars lander), software developer, and tech writer. But that was to pay the bills. I think of myself as a writer -- mostly sf, some horror, some mystery, some (yet unpublished) fantasy. Lots of details at www.dvorkin.com

My wife and I also help writers self-publish. You can find out more at www.dldbooks.com

In theory, I should be writing much more now that I'm retired. In practice, that's not happening. I blame the Internet.

I (white) thought that when Obama was elected, but I was quickly disillusioned.
QT: https://stranger.social/@wiseguyeddie/112838553495710979

Five years and five days ago, for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, I published a short memoir of my time working at NASA on the Apollo program, titled "When We Landed on the Moon".

It's not the catchiest title, but it is much snazzier than the more descriptive title "How I Worked at a Desk at NASA During Apollo Writing Fortran Code and Entering Lots of Data on Punch Cards and Poring over Piles of Computer Printout".

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1080633405/

This is America's Enabling Act.

People who sneered at science fiction are now living it, but they still sneer at science fiction.

It should have said "terminate a pregnancy". I couldn't edit it to correct it, so I added a comment to that effect.
QT: https://mastodon.nu/@Gurre/112610082420818010

That should be "to terminate a pregnancy".

I'd edit that toot if I could.
QT: https://qoto.org/@DavidDvorkin/112609774660685186

It won't happen, but we need this amendment to the Constitution:

"The ability of citizens to control their own bodies being fundamental to a free society, the right to terminate an abortion shall not be abridged."

The next president of Mexico will be Claudia Sheinbaum -- a Jewish woman with a science/engineering PhD. We might get Donald Trump.

Bernie Sanders, 82, will seek a fourth Senate term. I hope no one who supports him is grumbling about Joe Biden's age.

I shaved my head in preparation for my dermatologist appointment tomorrow, and now I'm Lex Luthor without the money.

I bet the first company to sell a smart mirror that shows you as you wish you were instead of as you actually are will make a fortune.

I haven't had hate e-mail for a while. I just got one from someone who goes by UnitedStatesof Jermerica.

Subject: You and your family are fucking rejects

Contents of the e-mail: family of leftists cucks - add that to your shitty website trash rofl

Thanks for the energetic example, Joe, from all the other (sensible) old people out there. We clap for you. Carefully, of course, because of the arthritis in our hands.

The childish concepts of karma and the moral arc of the universe are the descendants of the Medieval Church’s cynical instructions to the poor that they should accept their lot placidly because they would be rewarded and the evil punished in the afterlife.

I suppose if I had to choose the words for my tombstone, they would be

BUY MY BOOKS

According to the radio this morning, 75-84 year olds are now the fastest growing age group in Colorado. This makes no sense to me. Leonore and I are in that age group, and we're both shrinking.

My latest, a thriller, is now out in ebook on Amazon and can be read free via Kindle Unlimited. Print editions will be out on January 24.

Here's the link:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CSF8N7VK

Kids today with their school cancellations because of snow and cold. I tell ya. Why, why I was a lad in high school in northern Indiana, around 65 years ago, we'd get storms with layers of snow and ice and snow and ice and... (lake effect, perhaps), and school would be cancelled, and adults would snarl that we were wimps, why, in their day etc.

Either AI will leap ahead, turn hostile, and enslave or eradicate us, or it will become a stupendously powerful but docile, if just a wee bit scary, servant. I don't think there's a middle ground.

I'm betting on #2. Perhaps I should say that I'm hoping for #2.

Rereading a long-simmering, incomplete novel in preparation for jumping back into it. The story's still good, but the writing isn't as sparklingly wonderful as I remember. Damn that decay of magnetic domains.