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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


Mattias Lindström (Swebounce) – Robot chair

An evening pause: What every home must have!

Hat tip Jim Mallamace.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

5 comments

  • Chris

    If this act was in the US, the OSHA guy would be writing $10K fines every time he was within the radius of the arm

  • Klystron

    So a comedian and an industrial robot walk into a bar….

  • John

    It’s all fun and games until the robot becomes self aware and sticks the chair where the sun don’t shine.

  • Alex Andrite

    Fun and Games ? for fun ….
    I used a similar, stationary breadbox size table top robot type, while at Semiconductor Trade Shows long ago. Actually pretty dumb, until we added googly eyes and some “robot type” makeup on its “head” and “jaws”, much to the chagrin of the Japanese manufacturing reps.
    I would program robot to do the “things” as advertised, pick and place IC’s into trays, 360deg maneuvers with a Si wafer in its jaws, and multi axis rotations and so on.
    It really drew attention though, when programmed to hang its head nod slightly and mope back and forth, until a lovely walked by. Then robot would come alive rise up to its full two foot height and shudder, tracking the lovely as she walked towards our booth, google eyes buzzing, then at close to mid point of her walk by, robot would drop its head and knock like a wood pecker on the table top, if she stopped to look the next routine was a “come here” wave, and the next routine, if she registered and paused, was for robot to turn and reach over to a bowl of Hershey kisses, pick a kiss and turn to her with slight shivering offering her a Hershey kiss. If she received the kiss, robot routine would then pick up a business card and extend it to her, or place it back in the card holder tray.
    The sales guys remained silent, until …. and then love it.

    We had more fun with that small robot and the routines we could program, and execute remotely with a controller button press on the fly. Later, my routines “cheater list” was well appreciated by the manufacturing reps, and led me to do similar “Trade Shows”, as well as many after hours brainstorming / dining and fun drinking sessions.
    Oh, if a fellow approached, robot would offer him a piece of Black Jack type chewing gum.

    I considered syncing a routine with a “dance and music” routine, but never finished it, had to get a life and pay check.

  • wayne

    Klystron-
    (Great moniker btw.)
    Here we go…
    Westworld
    “God, Devil and Man walks into a bar…”
    https://youtu.be/3qD_La2F6bk
    4:55

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