Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Hi I'm Scomber.
I'm a musician, a singer/songwriter/producer/author/
environmentalist/father based in Sydney Australia.
I believe that the best things in life are free and should not be
owned and controlled by some faceless corporation or
shadowy publishing/record company.
The creative process and its results should be democratic and
accessible too all...
Thats when I discovered the creative commons community.
No, I'm not a communist, not even that much of a lefty, but I've
figured out that restrictive copyright practices with its inherent
exclusions limits the growth of many creative pursuits.
Admiral Bob, one of the finest exponents of this culture puts it
like this; “artists can and should contribute content to culture
that is unhampered by the kind of restrictions that treat art like
an imprisoned thing: don’t alter it, don’t move it onto a
different device, don’t copy it, don’t even listen to it unless you
re-license it”.
The net result, I believe is a bland sameness that seems to
permeate most popular culture.
Profitability generally doesn't equate to quality.
Quality doesn't always lead to commercial success.
This work is probably an example of both!
I'm not against commercial reward for art, its entirely necessary
but I'd much rather give something away for nothing. Thats just
me.
I'd like to invite you all to take a little time to read and listen to
this book and its music as I release each chapter every two
weeks.
So here's the first two chapters of “Mirror Mirror” and the first
two songs from the cc concept album of the same name.
Song Title: Mirror Mirror
Genre: Dance/Pop
M usic: Spinmeister
Arrangement /Production/Remix : Scomber
Lyrics: Scomber
Vocals: Sassygal
Backing Chatter: Jacinda Espinosa
= Download this track
Chapter 1
Three seconds of chat
While this was all occurring, the other craft speeding towards
Mars, the one containing the lander was only 800,000
kilometres from insertion. As the lander approached the red
planet it served as a relay station, accepting the extra data and
bandwidth from the orbiter as its partner used the thin Martian
atmosphere to slow itself down.
The plan was once the lander reached Mars and was ready to
land near the north pole, the roles would reverse. The Orbiter,
safely in orbit, would receive high bandwidth data from the
lander and then transmit it back to Earth.
The first craft, the orbiter, stopped transmitting 15 seconds
after the thrusters were first fired, 480 km above the Martian
surface. It got worse.
Twelve and half hours later the second craft, the lander, in the
words of the chief NASA Engineer, “just disappeared from the
screen”. Silence. Complete loss of contact. Not even the hum
from its ion propulsion system could be detected by any of the
large earth-based radio telescopes.
It couldn’t have hit Mars after losing contact, with its last
course setting it past Mars and out beneath the ellipse below
the orbit of Jupiter in three years time. The Mars hoodoo had
struck again, and those little green men must have been
laughing at their neighbour's folly.
The printout that Corey had stretched before him was a jumble
of zeros dashes and crosses. Eight metres of paper represented
the last 15 seconds of the orbiter. But these were not the
transmissions received by the approaching lander in relay
mode. Although they were weak, they were definitely the first
hand transmissions directly from the orbiter.
Corey had already spent enough time looking for aliens by
staring at SETI data to know that it just didn’t look right. The
image/positional data matrix didn’t flow the way it should,
especially for a moving object.
Three small southern hemisphere radio telescopes had been
tracking the telemetry of the craft in the final stages of the
insertion for navigational purposes only but not collecting the
rich data. This was collected by the larger northern hemisphere
dishes that were better positioned for collecting a larger data
stream.
But a student in Australia, had collected the data inadvertently
while studying the magnetosphere of Mars. He had used the
extra listening bandwidth of his telescope not being used by the
Mars mission.
The relatively small sized dish at Siding Springs was rarely
pointed at something so close, so this was his opportunity to
test some of his ideas. The observatory was primarily an
optical one, known world wide for its large refractor telescope.
Because the dish was so precisely focused on the spacecraft
approaching Mars - any stray radio waves, like the two
spacecraft talking to each other, send a small echo across the
region rippled across other frequencies.
Accidentally, this was detected and recorded.
Corey had met Charlie Blake on the internet in a space nerd
chat room.
Corey was particularly interested in space forensics.
For every ten payloads launched into orbit he said, two
experience some sort of failure, and three literally blew up at
launch. That’s five angry and anxious investors each wanting
to know what happened to their 300 million dollars.
Corey needed a contact that could look at the heavens from the
southern hemisphere.
Charlie wasn’t your ordinary student. He was 56 or maybe 62,
full blooded Aboriginal and the type of person that didn’t say
much, but when they did, it was very timely and intuitive. He
started working at Siding Springs as a cleaner ten years ago.
Head astronomer Ray Phillips would often chat to Charlie and
was amazed with Charlie’s knowledge of the night sky and the
movement of the planets. Twelve months later Ray offered him
the position of onsite trainee with a four year external science
degree.
Ray had filled out his application and sent it off to the
department, putting his age down as 36. He got the position,
but even better, the ABC did a human interest story on him that
became a rare media nugget for the embattled Science Minister
of the time. Aboriginal done good.
Charlie was king of the kids. He could sit at the controls of two
radio telescopes and three optical telescopes. No more
scrubbing toilets and floors.
Chapter 2
A bitter pill
“Now lets say in a mirror you see a person you have never met
approach you from behind, him too waving his hand.
Is he right handed or left handed?
What if he was flashing up a newspaper headline?”
Could you read it?
Corey gazed into his bourbon and pondered;
What if the distance to the mirror was vast, like Earth to Mars.
Even at the speed of light, it took a full 10 minutes for light or
a radio signal to reach Earth. What we see now happened 10
minutes ago.
The guy playing his shot on the pool table was now right
handed, playing from left to right down the table. But the
mirror showed a left handed player still playing left to right.
Corey looked up and noticed the booths opposite also had
mirror backing.
He then stood up and he could see the pool players’ reflection
in the other mirror but also the reflection of the mirror behind
him.
He asked Mr McDonaugh’s question again;
Right is left unless left is right.
It’s all about perception.
The 3.14 seconds had to be a reflection (at a distance) of
another 3.14 seconds.
He looked into and then sipped the rest of his beer and thought
that Charlie might be able to figure something out when he
spoke to him in the morning.
That was the last thing Corey could remember that evening.
He woke up in his room to the sunlight and the chatter of the
local robins at his window. He was in bed and butt naked
except for his socks.
He sat up, head throbbing, his eyes taking a while to focus.
He was sure he hadn’t dreamed about Miranda and began to
look around for signs that she had been in his room. Nothing.
No bra, panties or hairclip, anywhere.
Except for a long black trench coat draped over the chair.
He sat up and lipped his arms into the warm folds. He couldn't
remember her wearing a coat of any kind let alone one so warm
and comfortable. It smelt of her, thats for sure. He reached into
an inside pocket and found a crisp piece of folded paper.
He unfolded it and read it;
Thank You for a wonderful night.
I wish my car broke down more often in this neighbourhood.
Thanks for all your help
Good luck with your Martian chasing
I’m sure to see you again soon.
Miranda xxx
He wet his face with cold water, got dressed and set out for the
other side of campus to find Lisa. Maybe she knew what
happened last night.
He found Lisa in the library where she turned with a brief look
of contempt as their eyes met.
“So how’s it going loverboy?” she asked.
“You tell me. I can’t remember a thing.”
Corey beckoned Lisa to sit down in one of the vacant group
study rooms.