Interview with Nick Sagan

For question 5. As a child, your voice was recorded for the phonograph discs that  were attached to the Voyager spacecraft, which feature the sounds of Earth, just in case the spacecraft ever wandered by an extraterrestrial civilization. Do you think they ever will? Also, if the Voyager craft were being made today, would we include an iPod  instead?

I want to say that no, I don't think we would. We might send a dvd but actually a phonograph is probably still a good idea to send. The beauty of the phonograph is that it is a fairly simple device and any ETI finding it would only need to work out that you put a needle in the groove and spin the disc to get the information out. Of course it would be very quiet without amplification and I don't know how we could convey the correct speed to spin it at, but the basics are relatively easy. The way we store information on a dvd would be as obvious as a phonograph is and I expect today we would send a dvd also, but getting the information out of it requires more processing than playing the phonograph.

Sorry, I get these urges sometimes. Also, I'm sitting on the floor because there is a cat in my chair.

The interview itself is interesting and I need to check out some of Sagan's books. Both Sagans, actually.

Meditation

    To think of that needle in my arm, draining - my integrity violated. Watching it with dispassion as if this were happening to another. And yet I imagine I can feel it entering me. A flow, a presence, slow, slow pulse of change.
    Body will change, ok. Mind too? Doesn't matter, doesn't matter. Each tick from then to now, now to later, I am still I, every step of the way still say I'm me - if I can say. Still have a mouth? Think loudly. Nothing seems to happen at first. Don't panic, be patient. Days first, and longer before anyone will notice. You have all the time you could want.

    It does happpen eventually. Becoming. They don't understand what I'm doing, this realisation of being, and that's okay. I do look different now. There is no denying it. Mind is changing too, I don't mind. I'm still me. That is who I was yesterday and where is the gap between then and now?

    Thoughts slow, find some space to think. Quiet place, where I take root. The world goes by, leaves me be. Caterpillar through pupa into butterfly, they sparkle so prettily. I sparkle too, like a crystal tree.

    Thoughts slow, yes - I remember. Roots down, in the ground. Feeling their way through the world, reaching out. Feeling my way. What I was is left behind. Not shed, no, it is little, like one flake of the skin I left behind. I'm not in there any more. Spreading out, through my roots. I am in the world, I feel myself spread to fill it.

    Thoughts slow. Yes. Rock is slow, ice is slow. I must be slow too. Slowing down because I must to become. But so beautiful. They don't know - how could they know? - they don't know, but I feel it all. All about is void, but I am vast. Like the needle in my skin, seeping in, that's what I have done. I am become my world and I am all about and I can feel it all.

    Fuck, asteroid.

New feeds to read

Catching up on my SF Signal reading it seems writer Sean Williams (seanwilliams)has a LiveJournal account and, being compulsive as I am, it is added to my reading list. Also jonathanstrahan (he edited the Locus Award anthology in my reading pile, among other things).

Update: Also John Crowley (crowleycrow). LiveJournal seems very friendly to writers, I've had Elizabeth Bear (matociquala) and scott_lynch (not yet published in Australia but his novel looks very interesting) in my feed for a while now. Aargh! No time to read, no time! But it's soo delicious.

Update update: And Jeffrey Ford (14theditch)