:: Here’s something I never knew. John Jacob Astor IV was a science fiction writer! You can read his work A Journey in Other Worlds online. A taste:
Jupiter–the magnificent planet with a diameter of 86,500 miles, having 119 times the surface and 1,300 times the volume of the earth–lay beneath them.
They had often seen it in the terrestrial sky, emitting its strong, steady ray, and had thought of that far-away planet, about which till recently so little had been known, and a burning desire had possessed them to go to it and explore its mysteries.
Now, thanks to APERGY, the force whose existence the ancients suspected, but of which they knew so little, all things were possible.Ayrault manipulated the silk-covered glass handles, and the Callisto moved on slowly in comparison with its recent speed, and all remained glued to their telescopes as they peered through the rushing clouds, now forming and now dissolving before their
eyes. What transports of delight, what ecstatic bliss, was theirs! Men had discovered and mastered the secret of apergy, and now, “little lower than the angels,” they could soar through space, leaving even planets and comets behind.
Interesting. Of course, Astor was best known not for his SF writing but for dying aboard the RMS Titanic, although he didn’t actually “go down with the ship”. His body was actually found floating at sea a week after the wreck; from the damage to his body and the amount of soot covering his body (he was actually identified by the fact that his initials were stitched into his lapels), it was surmised that he was crushed by one of the falling smokestacks of the great ship.
:: Via Warren Ellis: fun for kids of all ages! Color such Biblical scenes as when Jesus rode the Velociraptor on his way to…somewhere!
Always weird stuff out there in Internet land…and with DSL, the weirdness is faster!