Because he’s far too modest to crow about it here, it falls to me to announce that Tobias Buckell, a co-blogger here at Futurismic, has just made a new three-book deal with Tor – congratulations, Tobias!
What’s that? You’ve not read any of his work yet? Well, I’ve read his debut novel, Crystal Rain, and I thought it was excellent. Go read the first third for free if you don’t believe me – or catch a podcast of one of his short stories over at Escape Pod. Guy’s got the skills, y’all.
Before slapping your wheezing and underpowered desktop PC for blue-screening you for the third time in an hour, think twice – if robots and other conscious machines get granted rights in a few decades time, there may be a precedent for retrospective prosecution of abusers. Hardware has feelings too, y’know.
Appropriately enough for the season, a scientifically verified virgin birth is in the offing. Of course, this adds no weight at all to the biblical stories of the same type – unless there was a bit in there about Jesus being a komodo dragon that I skipped over.
If you’re a discerning geek who can’t be satisfied with an action figure that’s anything but unique, the Vicale Corporation lets you configure your own with a handy-dandy Flash configurator. [boingboing]
There is enough idle electrical capacity in the United States’ grid to power all the cars and light trucks in the country, if everyone switched to plug-in hybrid-electric cars. Sure, the power would still be generated by fossil-fuel burning plants, but would be used with a higher overall efficiency and lower overall emissions, the studies’ authors claim. [treehugger]