Sonia is 12 days old. She's a real star. I spend a lot of time just looking at her.

I read the article Why Alien Intelligence May Not Be So Alien by N. Chandra Wickramasinghe on the SETI League web site.
He defends panspermia in a very logicial way. If I had one quote to remind, it would be this one:
Throughout history we know that every attempt to place the Earth in a special place or privileged position in the Universe has turned out to be wrong.


I received an incredible news in my mailbox: he International Space Station may be port of call for a free-flying telescope capable of not only probing the depths of the Universe, but also listening for the chatter of other civilizations and spotting Earth-threatening asteroids.
It looks like science fiction... The article even deals with Dyson's spheres.

Yesteday I received an email asking "where can I send messages to ETI". In my answer I indicated the Welcome ETI web site and the experiment I launched on mine.


People have to fill a form to write a message and then to explain it Then it just creates a text file on the website. So I have to check in the directory if there's new messages.
I did it yesterday... There was 7 messages (M>) and 2 solutions (S>)...
No comment... I'll just make a copy on the next month Cabine Telescope issue.

I finished a strange book this morning L'échiquier de la création from Dominique Douay. And? Where are the watches from Dali? It's the only thing missing in this piece of surrealism and poetry.

The result is here: more than 80% for Chirac.
A victory? Not really. That still makes a lot of people voting for the other and knowing what they did. Our president spoke about security problems and promised more actions. Let's wait and see what the governement will be. A mixture of old sad guys?

I read yesterday En approchant de la fin (Getting Near the End) a novel from Andrew Weiner. It was written in Y2K but I think that it corresponds to what happens now in France (and everywhere else). For example before some elections a future president proposes the creation of a Mental Health cabinet. Both candidates wanted to have something to reduce violence in big cities. They don't call it Bureau de la Santé Mentale but it's not so far.

I took a big decision this morning. My fanzine Le Bulletin de la Cabine Télescope will go on. But it will be a monthly newsletter available only on the web.

I've read Illegal Alien from Robert J. Sawyer. I found it great, fun and full of surprises. I think the book is of real interest for SETI enthousiasts. There's a lot about evolution and contact. The story tells the trial of a Tosok who kills a human. That's an original way of critisizing the american justice and also a good look to our past and way of handling conflicts.
May be will I write a more complete review if I have time for it. Is there a french translation of this 1998 book? If not it could be a nice thing to do it. It's really related to the american culture but the elections shows us that we are all americans but in the wrong side. There's also racism and XXXX wanted to have the death penalty back. It can be a good lesson for us. Ok, as the hero of the book, I'm a darned idealist...

Eureka! I know which book I'll put in my bag for the hospital: Le silence de la Cité from Elisabeth Vonarburg. Why? I've just finished all the short stories of Janus from the same author. My first surprise was that all of them were readible. I appreciate style and find it beautifull. It's very different from what I read in Jours de l'an 3000, a more recent anthology of french short stories. Is it just a matter of time? Was there more sensibility in the writting of the eighties and before?
The other great surprise is that I recognize myself in some characters. I closed the book with a strange revelation: the only boy in my dreams is my father. Tonight for instance I was discussing with other women about neutrinos preparing myself for an exam. Yesterday I was playing football with a little girl before giving my place to my father.
I remember an other book from E. Vonarburg Chroniques du pays des mères. And that's it! I fill mother but in the way that after the birth I'll be able to do everything by myself. There will be my daughter and me. That's all. Honoré can stay in Africa and I could send all the men on an other planet. That's really a strange impression because my consciousness tells me that we both need Honoré to be here. Do all the pregnant women fill this kind of things?
I could have as well have chosen Chroniques du pays des mères if I still had it with me. I lent it to one of my colleagues when I was in Lyon. I can still ask her to send it back to me but I think I remember the story. Le silence de la Cité seems to be of the same kind and I haven't read it yet.