Earlier today, a Soyuz-FG rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying an International Space Station (ISS) crew into orbit. Baikonur, Russia’s primary space launch facility since the 1950s, is the largest in the world, and supports multiple launches of both manned and unmanned rockets every year. With the U.S. manned space program currently on hold, Baikonur is now the sole launching point for trips to the ISS. Gathered here is a look at the facility, some of the cosmonaut training programs in Star City outside of Moscow, and a few recent launches and landings — plus a bonus: 3 spectacular long-exposure images of Earth from the ISS.

It’s amazing to see these photos considering how secretive the early days of the Soviet space program were.

Also worth checking out are Jesse Brown’s Search Engine podcasts on the subject.

Just a quick note to say that in addition to my many other roles, I’m also now the editor of TheDynamicPublisher.com. Formerly a web property used by Quark to publicize its dynamic publishing products, TheDynamicPublisher.com is now a vendor neutral home for all things related to dynamic content. You’ll find interesting articles about XML, content management, eBooks, semantic web, content conversion, content quality, as well as information about events, training, and industry news.

But, alas, I can’t do it myself. That’s where you come in. Stop by the blog and take a look around. Read some articles. Leave some comments, if you like (and I hope you do). Make some suggestions, should you feel inclined.

So what’s my point? It seems to me that publishers ought to be doing a much better job with the publication of ebooks, and how they represent and provide access to reference material. Keep in mind that, until I started writing this article, I never realized Mistborn had maps of any sort, because rather then starting me at the cover, ebooks start me at the first page of actual text—a nice feature, but it’s only really highlighting the problem with the serial presentation of information, a style of presentation that, it seems, does not need to exist in ebooks.

If I was rating it on IMDB I’d give it about 7.5 or maybe 8.0, just because the special effects are so good. If you go, do stay until the very end of the credits. There’s a final Easter egg to reward you. And you’ll also understand how a movie can have a budget of $200 million.

• David Brin explains how to win the war on facts, get those fools to put their money where their mouth is.
• The death of genre, Charlie Stross opines that SF as a genre is dying and explains why.
• Annealing the library, do libraries need to become patrons of culture?
• Death of the Document, founder of Author-It talks about the future of documentation.
• Make your sentences slim (by removing 35 wordy phrases), I have a longer list at work but this is a good start to clear writing.

Watch it in HD if you can. It’s worth it.

NASA dreams big science. In this awesome new short, NASA presents the Earth, the planets, the Sun, and the endless universe beyond. Come for the cool, stay for the music, take away a sense of wonder to share. It’s six minutes from Earth to forever, and you can see it here!
This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: ‪http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?10958

Google is everywhere. Really. So it’s no wonder Google wants to help you migrate into the cloud, and they make it easy because their services work seamlessly and amazingly well with each other. If you have a Google Account, you have access to a plethora of programs and services, some of which you may not even be aware of, that can make your everyday life much more productive. These services can be a boon for technical communicators who want to break the chains of the old-fashioned desktop and move their digital lives onto personal, mobile, smart devices.

Here’s a list of tips and tricks to Google your way to productivity, and save yourself the grief, frustration, and anger associated with trying to live the digital life; some quick ideas for setting up filters and labels to easily manage the flood of email; apps to protect your smartphone’s pictures and contacts; and using Google tools and apps offline.

The interview covers a lot of ground: what technical writers can contribute to ebook production, the future of e-reader devices and ebook formats, and why publishers are so uncomfortable with ebooks, among other topics. I really enjoyed talking with Joshua and I hope you’ll enjoy the interview, which is now published on TechWhirl.

Do you think that there’s an opportunity here for technical writers who are looking for new challenges to move into this field? Tech writers have been working with various online formats for quite a while and we understand how to structure content and make it easier to display and use in various output formats.

JT: Yeah, that would be really good for the publishing industry to see. There’s always a lot of bleed over that would be helpful on both sides. As long as we can get past the single source idea, because I don’t think that single source will be possible in the near future. There are just too many proprietary display engines and proprietary formats that are coming out.

I think the technical writing community can teach the publishing industry a lot about metadata, a lot about taxonomies, a lot about the deep information that you have, and the capabilities that you have to draw that information out and to give people more data as they read. That would be helpful.

Also tech writers could help with interfaces. There are a lot interfaces used in technical writing, search interfaces, indexing interfaces, that would also be helpful in the standard eBook market.

These are the nominees for best SF novel:

• Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• 11/22/63, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton as 11.22.63)
• Embassytown, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
• Rule 34, Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)
• The Children of the Sky, Vernor Vinge (Tor

Out of the five, I’ve read Rule 34 and The Children of the Sky. Both were good but not outstanding. I plan on reading 11/22/63 and possibly Leviathan Wakes.