Marcellus Shale gas overestimated by 80 percent

The U.S. Energy Information Administration says it will cut its estimate of the total natural gas in the Marcellus Shale by 80 percent to match the U.S. Geological Survey estimate, according to The New York Times.  "They’re geologists; we’re not," an EIA analyst said, rather sheepishly.

To be sure, 84 million cubic feet is still a lot of natural gas, but that USGS estimate itself is generous, because it counts all the gas that's "technically recoverable," meaning using every iota of extraction technology available on the planet.  How much of that would be economically feasible, even amid boom natural-gas prices, is another story.

That supposedly scientific estimates of Eastern gas reserves seem to vary so wildly, depending on who's making the estimate and what's being counted and what time of day it is and whether you hold your mouth just right, is deeply troubling.  I agree with Bill Powers, publisher of Powers Energy Investor:

If the country is going to embrace natural gas as the fuel of the future, there needs to be a lot more transparency in how these estimates are calculated and a more skeptical and informed discussion about the economics of shale gas.

(Thanks to Dale Sams for passing this along.)

Can a bar of soap in the bed prevent leg cramps?

I've heard for years, especially from Sydney's family, that a bar of soap in the bed prevents nocturnal leg cramps.  Having never suffered that malady, I've never had occasion to try it.  Now Snopes.com labels the folk belief "undetermined," on the assumption that no one has proven or disproven it.

I'm inclined, like Snopes, to attribute any benefit to the ever-reliable placebo effect, but I'd still like to know whether any scientists have tested this belief.

A Father's Day remembrance on the Outer Banks

While running errands today, I saw two women and two boys planting a cross beside the U.S. 158 bypass in Kill Devil Hills, N.C.

I stopped to talk and learned the cross marks the site where Victor Wilson of Kill Devil Hills was fatally injured on his motorcycle in May 2010.  The boys are Wilson's sons, who were 13 and 6 when he died. Planting the cross was the family's Father's Day observance.

Here's the original Virginian-Pilot account of Wilson's death, which credits police as saying that a pickup-truck driver leaving the Outer Banks Brewing Station across the highway pulled in front of Wilson's Harley about 7:30 p.m. on May 21, 2010. "Charges are pending," says the story, but I find no follow-up online.

Here's the online obituary, courtesy of Twiford's Funeral Home in Elizabeth City, N.C.

The new cross is in the corner of the Captain George's lot on U.S. 158, a.k.a. South Croatan Highway, at the Goddard Avenue intersection. We drive by dozens of such markers every day; every one is a story.

Procrastination wins again

In our absence this week, the bell post in our front yard finally fell down of its own accord, sparing us a chore we'd been putting off for five years. The timing is good, as Big Trash Day is next week.

This summer's Write-a-Thon(s)

I haven't tried this before, but since I am working on several writing projects this summer, I have declared solidarity with the Clarion West and Clarion UCSD students, and joined the Write-a-Thon fund-raisers for both workshops. Writers and readers, please help me spread the word, and consider joining and/or pledging. Here's my Clarion West Write-a-Thon page, and here's my Clarion UCSD page.

A fine alternate-history illustration

This fine Richard Hess cover for The Oxford Book of Military Anecdotes (Oxford UP, 1985) is a work of alternate history, unlike the book it was commissioned to wrap around. 

I wonder whether Hess read Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series -- though in Farmer's novels, all the world's most famous military leaders didn't wake up on the same patch of riverbank, fortunately.  Moreover, most of Hess' characters are clearly older than 25.

ICFA-31: Sydney

This photo of Sydney Duncan fits none of my other groupings, but I like it, and she's my wife, and she did a great job as author wrangler this year, so she gets a posting all to herself. John Kessel took this photo at the (excellent) Thursday-morning Kathy Goonan / Kij Johnson / Tom De Haven reading.

ICFA-31: The wrap party

Below: The Dell Award finalists barely could contain themselves. Anthony Powers, Lara Donnelly, Rebecca McNulty, Rachel Sobel, Rachel Halpern (almost visible) and Miah Saunders.Below: Rebecca McNulty, Anthony Powers (almost visible), Rachel Sobel, Rachel Halpern, Lara Donnelly and Miah Saunders.Below: Rebecca McNulty, Rachel Halpern, Miah Saunders and Lara Donnelly.Below: Lara Donnelly and her dad, Richard Donnelly, who's so proud of her he will overlook the hat.Below: Pepe Rojo and Sydney Duncan.Below: Chrissie Mains.Below: Elizabeth Hoiem.Below: P. Andrew Miller.Below: Bill Senior.Below: Elizabeth McManus, winner of this year's Graduate Student Award for her Friday-afternoon paper "Protecting the Island: Interior and Exterior Space in Lost."Below: Jedediah Berry, winner of this year's Crawford Award for best first book of fantasy for his novel The Manual of Detection.Below: Jim Casey, new president of the IAFA, with the unclaimed power cord he cherished for much of the evening. Jim and I were classmates at the University of Alabama, where we had such hopes.Below: Joe Berlant and Mark Wingenfeld, dazed by their release from the book room.Below: Amelia Beamer and Rick Wilber.Below: Ellen Klages, Amelia Beamer and Charles Vess.Below: F. Brett Cox and Francesca Myman.Below: Two views of Liza Trombi and James Patrick Kelly.Below: Veronica Schanoes, Jeana Jorgensen and Marie Brennan.Below: Ellen Klages fails to frighten Russell Letson.Below: Amelia Beamer successfully frightens Peter Straub and Gary K. Wolfe.

ICFA-31: Ambushing people in the lobby

Below: Gary K. Wolfe, Joe Haldeman and Peter Straub.Below: Rachel Sobel, Rebecca McNulty and Joe Haldeman.Below: Steven Erikson and Aidan-Paul Canavan.Below: Stephen R. Donaldson and Jennifer Cox.Below: Nora Jemisin and Karen Burnham.Below: Liza Trombi and Amelia Beamer.Below: Liza Trombi, Amelia Beamer and Francesca Myman.Below: Jeanne Beckwith and F. Brett Cox.Below: Graham Sleight.Below: Peter Straub.Below: Rusty Hevelin.Below: Rusty Hevelin and Gary K. Wolfe.Below: Tom and Santa De Haven, Rachel Sobel and Rebecca McNulty.

ICFA-31: Saturday banquet

Below: Kij Johnson and John Kessel.Below: Jen Gunnels and Ellen Klages.Below: Three photos of Sydney Duncan, Liza Trombi and Karen Burnham. Their conversation eventually focused, as you can see, on Karen's amazing tattoo, a 14-hour job I should have gotten a photo of.Below: Sydney Duncan, Karen Burnham, Liza Trombi and Amelia Beamer.Below: Daphne Grace and Kij Johnson.Below: James Patrick Kelly and Ted Chiang.Below: F. Brett Cox and Jeanne Beckwith.Below: Jen Gunnels and the ever subtle Stefan Hall.Below: David G. Hartwell and Amy Branam.Below: Andy Duncan (photo by John Kessel).

ICFA-31: A Friday outing

Several of us, conference-crazed, took advantage of the nice weather by fleeing the hotel Friday afternoon for the Nature Conservancy's Disney Wilderness Preserve, just south of nearby Kissimmee.

Below: What are Ellen Klages, Charles Vess and Karen Vess looking at?Below: Oh, it's a family of sandhill cranes.Below: Karen Vess and Ellen Klages on the boardwalk.Below: Two views from the boardwalk.Below: Ellen Klages meets a turtle.Below: The turtle demands a close-up. Moments later, it got tired of us and crawled off the road and safely back into the brush.I wish I had taken some photos of East Lake Fish Camp, a bit of Old Florida where we relaxed and ate exactly the lunch we wanted (catfish and beer, in my case). I did, however, take a photo to prove exactly why straying off the "main roads" in the Orlando area can be so bewildering, at the intersection of Boggy Creek Road and Boggy Creek Road:(Yes, we all immediate thought of the 1972 drive-in classic The Legend of Boggy Creek -- it was that sort of crowd -- but I believe that was set in Arkansas, not Florida.)