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All posts for the month October, 2014

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Review – Zero Sum Game – SL Huang – CC-BY-NC-SA

Available at Unglue.it, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo

Author’s website

Zero Sum Game has action. Lots and lots of action. Cas Russell is a math savant. She uses her talent for instantly perceiving trajectories and vectors and probabilities in her profession: retrievals. People pay her to retrieve items for them. Her lethal skills are useful in her work.

Rio is the only person Cas trusts. He’s a religious psychopath who hurts people for God. Given that he enjoys hurting people, it’s a good thing he has a moral compass.

Arthur Tresting is a private investigator. He loathes Rio for the monster he is, and despises Cas for her profession and her convenient ethics, but he’s an honorable man. He has a client and has to work with Cas and Rio to do his job.

What begins as a simple retrieval job for Cas Russell soon becomes a struggle for survival against a shadowy, all-powerful organization.

Zero Sum Game is a good read. It’s a good story well told. SL Huang is a good writer. The proofreading and editing are of professional quality, and the ebook formatting is excellent.

I recommend dropping over to Unglue.it and downloading it.

rjb

Photo credit - Brandt Leinor

Photo credit – Brandt Leinor

With autumn rampant here, it’s time for another batch of photographs from the Oliver Photo Club. You will notice that there are only two photographers featured today. Jeremy Cook and Brandt Leinor are the most faithful contributors to OPC, in addition to being very good picture-takers. As usual, these pictures are linked to the full-sized originals. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a way to force the links to open in a new tab, so clicking them will take you away from Green Comet. If you don’t have your browser set to open links automatically in new tabs, I suggest you use a middle-click or right-click.

Photo credit - Jeremy Cook

Photo credit – Jeremy Cook

Here are the links to the original Oliver Photo Club posts that featured these images. There you can find the explanatory notes uploaded by the photographers along with their pictures. Fortunately, I can force these ones to open in a new tab, so you can click them normally. There are two by Brandt Leinor: Blue Tractor and Yellow Lake. Three by Jeremy Cook: Gateway, Kettle River and Fall Moss.

Photo credit - Brandt Leinor

Photo credit – Brandt Leinor

Photo credit - Jeremy Cook

Photo credit – Jeremy Cook

I hope you enjoy Autumn Rampant.

Photo credit - Jeremy Cook

Photo credit – Jeremy Cook

rjb

Photo credit - Anne Burgess - CC-BY-SA

Photo credit – Anne Burgess – CC-BY-SA

Cloud of the Day – Cap Cloud

Cap cloud (link to a super photo on the Astronomy Photo of the Day website) is similar to pileus in that it forms on top of another structure. In the case of pileus, the other structure could be a cumulonimbus cloud or a volcanic plume. Cap clouds, on the other hand, are found on permanent structures, such as mountain peaks. Cap cloud is defined at Weather Online as a “. . . stratiform, orographic cloud that hovers above or over an isolated mountain peak.” “Orographic” means that the lifting mechanism that raises the moisture-laden air to the condensation level is the terrain. And “stratiform” means that the cloud is more layer-like than vertical in its development. In these ways, cap cloud is also related to altocumulus lenticularis, another stratiform cloud formed by orographic lift.

Photo credit - euphro - CC-BY-SA

Photo credit – euphro – CC-BY-SA

Cap clouds form when warm, moist air is forced up over a mountain peak. When the condensation level is at or near the summit, a cloud forms in close enough proximity to merit the name. When the winds are strong enough, they smooth it out into the classic lenticular form. An interesting effect can be seen sometimes when you’re on the lee side of the mountain. As the air flows over the top of the mountain and down your side, it warms up again and evaporation causes the cloud to disappear partway down. If you look closely, you can see the cloud constantly flowing over the mountain, then vanishing, an effect I was lucky enough to see at Cook Mountain in New Zealand.

Photo credit - Bojan Dodoc

Photo credit – Bojan Dodoc

Cap cloud is not associated with precipitation, given that the air is necessarily drier at lower elevations.

Photo credit - Colin Sue Brown

Photo credit – Colin Sue Brown

rjb