Monthly Archives: February 2009

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1 tree = 111 books: is reading an environmentally sound pastime?

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book stacksOver at Tor.com, novelist M M Buckner does a bit of soul searching regarding her reading pastime; if one tree makes 111 books, is the environmental sacrifice justifiable?

How long does it take you to read 111 books? What if you count magazines, newspapers, catalogs, photocopies , billing statements, Valentine cards to loved ones? Every year, one tree absorbs 26 pounds of carbon dioxide and exhales enough oxygen to keep four people alive. The UN says, to make up for all the trees we’ve killed in the last decade alone, we’d need to plant a forest the size of Peru. Only, Peru is just not into that.

So is buying a book a form of murder? When I leaf through the latest science fiction thriller, am I suffocating some future possible infant in the crib? Does reading make me a baby killer?

Her response is that the ebook revolution that’s currently gathering pace is the antidote to any such worries, and it comes with a side serving of “literary egalitarianism” – in other words, it activates a kind of Long Tail economics where more obscure titles become better business propositions, which is something that one would hope even the most die-hard climate skeptic can get behind. [image by ginnerobot]

Of course, if you’re still worried about atoning for your book habit, you could always reduce your footprint in some other way, like eating less meat…

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Catholic Church bringing back indulgences

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indulge-me

Full disclosure: I was raised Catholic. So maybe I could use one of these.  And when I told like-backgrounded friends and relatives about this New York Times story, the reaction was uniform: “You’re kidding.” No:

In recent months, dioceses around the world have been offering Catholics a spiritual benefit that fell out of favor decades ago — the indulgence, a sort of amnesty from punishment in the afterlife — and reminding them of the church’s clout in mitigating the wages of sin.

The fact that many Catholics under 50 have never sought one, and never heard of indulgences except in high school European history (Martin Luther denounced the selling of them in 1517 while igniting the Protestant Reformation), simply makes their reintroduction more urgent among church leaders bent on restoring fading traditions of penance in what they see as a self-satisfied world.

Pope John Paul II liked the idea of bringing them back, and Pope Benedict is even more enthusiastic. What indulgences are:

According to church teaching, even after sinners are absolved in the confessional and say their Our Fathers or Hail Marys as penance, they still face punishment after death, in Purgatory, before they can enter heaven. In exchange for certain prayers, devotions or pilgrimages in special years, a Catholic can receive an indulgence, which reduces or erases that punishment instantly, with no formal ceremony or sacrament.

There are partial indulgences, which reduce purgatorial time by a certain number of days or years, and plenary indulgences, which eliminate all of it, until another sin is committed. You can get one for yourself, or for someone who is dead. You cannot buy one — the church outlawed the sale of indulgences in 1567 — but charitable contributions, combined with other acts, can help you earn one. There is a limit of one plenary indulgence per sinner per day.

It has no currency in the bad place.

Confession is a prerequisite. Dammit. (Oops.)

[Plenary indulgence. Inscription on the left transept of the Basilica of St. John Lateran (Rome): Wikimedia Commons]

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More bartering business

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barter at a car boot saleIf you think your local economy’s in a mess, just be thankful you’re not living in Russia, where it appears that big corporations are turning to barter trade in a desperate attempt to keep business moving:

So far, economists doubt that barter will grow to the level it reached in the 1990s. Earlier in the transition to a market economy, industrialists still had little monetary stake in their businesses but were dependent on the prestige that went with executive positions, said Andrei Yakovlev of the Higher School of Economics here. They had little incentive to cut costs, and barter deals kept them going for five years, he said.

Now, business owners and managers “are really trying to reduce costs and reduce inefficiency,” Mr. Yakovlev said. Interest in barter, he said, is more likely to come from regional governments, which have the most to lose from high unemployment.

Local government moving towards barter is a little scary… but then a bit of decentralisation might not be a terrible thing if it means that, in the long run, the system becomes more resilient to global clusterfucks like the subprime collapse.

Meanwhile, there are other comparatively recent examples of communities surviving without the assistance of banks – the Irish bank strike of the early seventies, for example. And the sheer amount of coverage being given to alternative currencies and financial systems in places where economics is not traditionally the foremost subject of interest speaks volumes for the overnight erosion of trust in banking as we know it. [image by shawnchin]

What will we build in its place as we move into John Robb’s global guerilla century?

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Life-size telepresence robots make their appearance

qa_1 A few years ago I seem to recall a spate of SF stories in Asimov‘s and elsewhere that dealt with the concept of telepresence: humans controlling robots at a distance, immersed in a virtual-reality world that made what happened to the robot feel much more real than merely sitting at a control panel manipulating a joystick.

Well, human-sized telepresence robots are beginning to make their appearance. California company Anybots debuted its Anybots QA telepresence robot at the Consumer Electronics Show in January (Via Gizmag):

The robot’s 802.11g wireless connectivity allows 20 FPS video at 640×480 resolution captured by the QA’s two 5MP color cameras and full duplex, high fidelity sound to be sent back to the user’s Mac or PC running the client software. A 7-inch color LCD screen in the QA’s chest can display the remote user to give long distance interactions that human touch while navigation comes courtesy of QA’s onboard 5.5 yard range LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), which functions like RADAR but uses light instead of radio waves.

Standing at 5 foot tall the QA can also bend to 2 foot high to interact more easily with people sitting. The robot’s rechargeable Li-ion battery gives 4-6 hours of operation and allows QA to reach speeds of up to 6 MPH on his two 12-inch diameter wheels.

The company is developing other robots that walk, jump and run on two legs. One of them reportedly has a fully articulated hand that will permit the operator to perform a wide range of tasks. The QA is expected to be available for purchase later this year at around $30,000 U.S.

Maybe someday we’ll all sit at home at a computer and send out robots to do our jobs and errands, and never leave the house.

Someone should make a movie about it…

Order your surrogate robot today!

(Image: Anybots.)

[tags]robots,telepresence,movies,gadgets[/tags]

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Screw optimism – this is a global guerilla century

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guerillas on the marchJohn Robb isn’t going to give you the news you want to hear. Nope, sorry – the Depression scenario has already emerged fully, and the results are not going to be pretty as we transition into a new politico-economical era in its wake:

A global depression, in and of itself, isn’t the end of the world. However, it can set in motion unexpected events (black swans) — as in how the last depression catalyzed WW2. The revisionist effort to this economic collapse isn’t likely to be a surge in ideology or nationalism. Instead, we can expect an organic realignment as small groups of people form new primary loyalties (either to violent manufactured tribes or resilient communities), slot themselves into open source movements, and challenge a wheezing group of incumbent nation-states. This is a global guerrilla century.

So, not exactly a rosy outlook… and a poke in the eye for the Positive Manifesto school of sf, perhaps. That said, there’s plenty of starting points in Robb’s material for the more dystopian-leaning writer to tackle! [image by Keith Bacongco]

But what do you think – is Robb looking at a worst-case scenario and seeing Mad Max re-runs, or is he being generous with the possibilities of civilisational collapse?