Powering smallish balloons

I figured that our floating Venus habitats - "aerostat" in the jargon - will be doing jes'faaahn for power, getting 1.911 flux as they get. Larger ones can supplement that by heat-differential, dipping 10s-km conductive cables through the clouds. How about smaller ones?

It's a question I hadn't thought to ask, but the first Venereal habs will be small, aiming to scale-up; also, not everyone wants to live in a large city. For the floating suburbs, power can be beamed point-to-point. ToughSf is more considering tethering a balloon to the ground and running a current. There's no need on Venus' surface (wind power will do better) but I can easily this being nice for, say, highland Mars over those pesky dust storms.

The paper's source of the laser-beaming would be GEO. That orbit exists for Mars (Deimos is almost there already) and of course for Earth. Not so much Venus, absent an orbital ring; but as I noted, not much need.

For Mars they'll want a larger balloon painted gold - which as a side-effect means more surface-area.

Theodotus of Âmid

Why not wade back into the early-Islamic Jazira - here's a book on Theodotus of Amida. Unfortunately by Gorgias so you'll be paying through the large hooked nose; but this work seems better than, say, Michael Jackson Bonner's work over there. Because it's Hoyland and Palmer.

Palmer is an expert in west-Syrian text but didn't include this in The Seventh Century - on account it's not a chronicle, and might not be entirely west-Syrian (I'll get to this). Hoyland meanwhile gave this one a ringing endorsement in his own, some-years-later, Seeing Islam. That's my source for what follows, since I don't own their latest take.

Theodotus was a seminomadic saint of the region which had endured so much violence in the AG 950s / AD 640s. By his time the violence was over, and the victorious Arabs dealt with the region largely through Christian subordinates. These were a diverse set of Christian: the Vita comes through Joseph presbyter himself ordained by Jacobites. Their pope Julian had in fact ordained Theodotus as bishop of hometown Âmid around 1000 / 690, but Theodotus (like James of Edessa AD 684-8) didn't much appreciate so worldly an honour, so retired to Qenneshre to be a monk.

I am somewhat-interested in Theodotus' career before Julian (999/687); the 990s/680s had descended into war again this time between the Umayyads and... well, everybody. Part of Theodotus' ambit was Nisibin. Nisibin belonged to those whom Joseph will call The Heretics. In Joseph's time, also Julian's time: Jacobites applied the term mainly to the Nestorians (who returned the favour of course). But Theodotus went to the house of the heretics... just as freely as with the orthodox. Theodotus even got arrested for Melkite ("Roman") sympathies. Pseudo-Methodius was similarly culturally Monophysite and uninterested in picking sectarian fights with fellow Christians.

Joseph reports that Theodotus wrote many letters in "the land"; going as far as to "Beth-Hesne" which "house of fortresses" is marked as Roman territory. The disciples of James of Edessa owned such a collection of James' letters; I assume Joseph owned a similar collection from Theodotus, using them to compile his Vita. But, like the Ninevene Christians, the latter letter-collection hasn't survived the Turks and the Daesh.

The reasons the Jacobite hierarchy wanted to claim Theodotus are because he was known as holy by everyone, and because he, um, mostly lived there. I wonder if Theodotus' relative tolerance spurred bishop George's anathema against itinerants like him.

The priests of Shu

From the land of the undomesticated kittycats, Archaeology is summarising the Shu, at now Sanxingdui. I blame allergies.

Anyway, these were contemporaries with the Shang state. The Shang spoke and wrote Chinese. I always say "pots ain't people - they're language". The Shu, in a valley somewhat separate from the Shang with the tech at the time, did not use the same pots. They liked anthropomorphic designs if stylised, rather like the Maya; the Shang didn't go for that. Also the Shang used bone to cast oracles - luckily for us readers - of which, we've no evidence for the Shu. The two cultures differed, in short, probably not even speaking the same language. But it seems they may have agreed upon similar notions on the State.

When I talk about "Shang" I use the state's own name for itself - because they told us that name, in their inscriptions. Later Chinese recalled the state as "Yin", from their family name (the Zhou let them keep a duchy at Song). We have "Shu" from a "Chronicles of Huayang" of which I hadn't heard. Anyway it too is a later source. So, I use "Shu" for want of any better.

In Mesoamerica, Tlaxcala had a republic and the Aztecs had an amir. The Aztec amir was in-process of making a caliph of himself when the Spaniard showed up. What we're now calling "China", in Shang times, seems more like the Bronze Age over in Mesopotamia. Mitanni and Hatti were not the same, but their mutual treaties could agree upon what a "king" was and what a "temple" was. Likewise, it seems, the Shang and the Shu agreed upon the correct duties of a king and of a priesthood.

The Shang's holy kingship failed its test in 1046 BC, when the Zhou mounted a revolution. Anyang - last city of the Shang - was abandoned, left to modern Chinese to dig back out. The Zhou would rule with more thought to local concerns, and left to others the glory of the gods. Likewise it seems that the Shu faced a contemporary test: priests and nobles alike vanished from Sanxingdui, after which the nobles reappear at Jinsha - without the priests. Before the nobles left Sanxingdui they buried a lot of bronzes - not recast them, just buried them. There never was much of an "iron age" in China, so the archaeologists judge this burial as a simple waste of money. It must have been done for ideology.

I am somewhat reminded of how the priesthood of the Incas gathered wealth unto itself; or maybe the nobles of the Maya.

Unfortunately the Shu didn't leave any writing - like the early Shang and Erlitou didn't leave writing. More likely is that they did have writing but we're not lucky enough to own (say) oracle-bones... because the Shu didn't use bone for oracles. If I had to guess I'd pin the Shu for a Tanggut/Tibetan lot.

The Columbus Day hangover

The Judio-Theory always smelled wrong to me on account of how apocalyptically tradcath the Admiral ended up. For those still paying attention, last weekend we got a flurry of silly on muh genetics. What we have here is failure to replicate... again.

Off to the next shiny thing I suppose.

Hats off to SpaceX

Just a short note that, although I woke up too late to see the launch and stage-separation - both boring at this point - I did catch (heh) the retrieval of the SuperHeavy. I was not expecting it all to be so precise.

Of course Musk and Shotwell (heh heh) have had a lot of time to plot out contingencies by now. Musk in particular has had nothing better to do than to appoint himself as Troll Lord on X. That's our runaway government's fault more than it is, Musk's.

Interesting fire at the end of the booster-catch; there shouldn't really be all that much fuel for a fire, when the booster done boosted and done ... done. But that's why we test. Nobody should be expecting a big bang; the fear was a crash and broken equipment. Since they have everything else intact they'll know what to reinforce for next-time.

Zim is calling 100%. I can't argue with that. Shame on FAA and on all the other clowns for trying to stop this.

Hydrothermal

Last month I missed a speculation on K2-18's planet: that it might be hydrothermal. That is: it indeed has a water layer below the clouds (sulfur/carbon dominant); in a supercritical state. Like the carbon-dioxide defining Venus' "sea level".

LEO to GEO

Tom Mueller's been busy since losing his job with the Raptors (although he's kept that on his resume). ToughSf points to Helios.

This is a nonnuclear solution for tugging cargo from LEO (halfway-to-anywhere) to Beyond. They're going with five tons - I assume nonmetric - for LEO>GEO in 24 hours. Metricbros can point to the 67 kN spec. For the SF auteurs amongst us: here's our baseline.

One assumption is that multitonne widgets will be had in LEO for pushing off past the Van Allens. This is the SuperHeavy future; Mueller seems to be aiming at Starship-without-Raptor. Hey why not; Starship's job is to get back to Earth, not to muck around in orbit.