Library Journal:

"Niven, Larry & Matthew Joseph Harrington. The Goliath Stone. Tor. Jun. 2013. 320p. ISBN 9780765333230. $24.99. SF

By the mid-21st century, Dr. Toby Glyer has nearly perfected the use of nanites in affecting medical cures. Nanotechnology has also made possible the acquisition of wealth through asteroid mining. What has been merely a theory becomes all too real, however, when an extinction level asteroid plummets toward Earth on a collision course. The nanites sent to shift the asteroid’s path away from Earth seem to develop a mind of their own, and no one knows in whose best interests they are acting. VERDICT Niven, multiple award-winning author of the “Ringworld” series, combines his talent for exciting, hard sf with the skills of Harrington, the author of Soul Survivor, to provide an action-packed biotech thriller that’s filled with ideas and made stronger by well-developed characters. The subject matter and style lend themselves to film as well as sf, providing a fast and entertaining look at the not-so-distant future."

Emphasis mine.

A cable miniseries would work better than a movie, which would lose much detail and all suspense.

I may not be poor any more.

http://xkcd.com/1213/

I'm confused. I have to hold my breath for three minutes, and then all I see is Jesus spanking Bettie Page.

Which is what I always see when I do that.

I watch various restaurant-rescue shows, and I often brood on my childhood belief that I had a high metabolism rather than a desire not to eat, and when I did both close together recently it occurred to me that Gordon Ramsay may have had my mother hit.

I have no evidence for this, and do not want anyone collecting any. He's a good, good man.

ADDED THOUGHT AT NO CHARGE:

I like to imagine that, upon her arrival in the afterlife, she was taken to a nicely-laid table in an enclosed booth in a fine restaurant, and presented with a big thick slice of rich chocolate fudge cake, and, when she was trying to swallow the first bite and looking around desperately, a horned and hooved demon came out of the kitchen and said:

"IT'S GOT MILK IN IT!"

I speculate that there are a lot of people who end up in that restaurant.

Q ) Given things like, e.g., hyperdrive and time travel, how do you tell what's fantasy and what's science fiction?

A ) Fantasy violates the laws of Nature. Science fiction never gets past third base.

Recently I saw a car with a big sticker on the back window that said ARCHBISHOP MITTY.

According to BING it turns out to be the name of a local parochial school, but my brain had already filled in:

DEMON SLAYER.

(Nonreaders of Thurber may find this obscure.)

He's home. Very freaked.

Around noon, one of our cats was sleeping on a windowsill and the screen tore.

Willow hasn't been outside since we rescued him two years ago. His sister Eclipse fell out too, but I was able to bring her back inside.

She was borderline hysterical. I believe she thought she'd been abandoned again.

She's the calm one.

We haven't found Willow yet.

Prayers are welcome.

Judging by observation of aristocrats past and present, while breeding intelligent creatures for some particular trait may or may not get you descendants who have inherited that trait, it will sure as shootin' get you descendants who have inherited a tremendous inclination to breed.

If one thing is trying to kill you, it's called an enemy.

If everything is trying to kill you, it's called Nature.

Earth Day is the result of a mass outbreak of Stockholm Syndrome.

The Goliath Stone

Larry Niven and Matthew Joseph Harrington. Tor, $24.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-7653-3323-0

Worried about destructive meteors, nanotechnologist Toby Glyer launches the satellite Briareus to act as an early-warning system. But the on-board nanites start evolving and Briareus disappears, reappearing 25 years later—on a collision course with Earth. This may sound dire, but Niven (the Ringworld series) and Harrington (Soul Survivor) turn it into a rollicking good time. To deal with the looming threat, Glyer recruits May Wyndham, whose company was responsible for the initial launch, and William Connors, a genius who has surreptitiously been improving humanity by introducing nanites into the population. As nanites make the protagonists younger, healthier, and sexier, they engage in fast, funny, and gloriously self-referential repartee, with repeated homage paid to classic science-fiction writers and their work. The hard science can be dense, but it never gets in way of the breezy mood that gives this delightful romp its wings. (June)

http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-7653-3323-0