Weekly Shtuff 11-29-2012
Possible ice on Mercury? Given the proximity to the sun, I’d think even the shadow sides would be a bit more on the warmish side, but what do I know?
Although I’m diligently working on LIM plus writing on a horror novel for my thesis project, I still manage to sang a moment now and then to play video games. I’m at about the halfway point in Resident Evil 4, and it’s fun enough but disappointing. I never followed any of the Resident Evil movies or games, but I thought I’d picked up a notion of the overarching story: a bio-accident at a lab in Raccoon City turned people into zombie/living dead/ugly creatures, and the heroes had to stop it. Since this game is a sequel, I figured it would somehow relate to that storyline, but not so. Oh, there are lots of zombies and lots of shooting, but it is, at least thus far, dealing with some kind if occult group bent on some vague plan that includes kidnapping the president’s daughter. Not very compelling. Maybe it ramps up in the end, and I’m enjoying it as mindless entertainment, but I really want to move on to the mountain of other games I have on hand that seem to promise more.
A new month is about to begin at Top Web Comics, so don’t forget to vote for LIM. We were at least in the top 100 this month, but we used to hover in the mid-50s. I probably forget to vote every day as well, but I hate to think my voting for my own webcomic is the reason we made it that high!
I have some new blog material on hand, just no time to shape it at the moment, but soon…honest, soon. Until then, you’ll have to be satisfied with the comic.
Have a good weekend.
November 30th, 2012 at 12:23 am
I just wanted to throw out there Dead Space 2 is an excellent horror game. It has the jump out and scare you and creepiness that Resident Evil has been missing for the past 10 years. Story line is pretty weak, end boss not all that much fun, but the characters are ‘fun’ and the setting is enjoyably creepy to traverse (at one point working your way through a elementary school). There was one point near the end that I failed to do some task or make the right choice (I forget exactly what I did wrong) but the scene of me killing myself was definitely worth seeing. Also, it’s pretty short so by the time you start to have enough, you are already done. And, I think I got the game for $5 on steam.
November 30th, 2012 at 6:41 pm
I don’t believe Mercury has an atmosphere, which means that only the parts that the sun is touching will be warm.
December 2nd, 2012 at 10:51 am
I made sure to vote every day this month, and I think you ended up at very close to 1000 votes overall, so about 3% of them came from me. In any case I think that’s a rather respectable result, considering how many other good comics there are on the list that get little attention.
Perhaps you could take a couple of days out and whip up a collection of new voting incentives to tempt us with. It wouldn’t have to be anything fancy. I’d personally love to see more of your pre-production sketchwork or non-LIM art, for example. Just a suggestion.
Re: Mercury; anyone who’s ever read Larry Niven’s short story “The Coldest Place” (http://variety-sf.blogspot.jp/2007/09/larry-nivens-coldest-place-nivens-first.html) should understand that it can get pretty cold there, despite its proximity to the Sun. Although the story does rely on outdated info for its (no longer a) surprise twist.
Without any atmosphere to trap and circulate heat, or warmth welling up from an active core, radiative cooling from the dark side more than balances out the heat energy coming in on the day side. Indeed, Wikipedia says Mercury has the largest temperature gradient of all the planets.
(Small side rant: I hate it when it’s not clear whether a comment system supports bbcode/html, especially when there’s no preview function.)
December 3rd, 2012 at 9:05 am
Came here to say what John already did- because Mercury has no appreciable atmosphere (actually it has a super-thin trace of sodium atoms blown off the surface by the solar wind), there is no “air” to transmit heat. Thus, objects in sunlight are extremely hot, while areas in perpetual shadow (the areas in craters at both poles) will be extremely cold, thus preserving ice. This ice probably came from comet impacts, much like the ice found in polar craters on the Moon.
December 4th, 2012 at 6:35 am
@Sean W: So Mercury is a cosmic ray spallated planetary salt cellar?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mercury#Tails
Not to be confused with-as I am the sort of person who would-Mercuric chloride.
(If nothing else, I discovered
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primordial_nuclide
whilst looking that up)
As for resident evil, the “Natural History Conspectus”
http://residentevil.wikia.com/Natural_History_Conspectus
bit of background fluff is the one I found to be of greatest interest.