All posts by Paul Raven

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wh00t! Futurismic makes the cut at PC Magazine’s Top 100

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PC Magazine masthead logo

I hope you’ll all excuse us a moment of self-congratulation – the Futurismic team have just discovered that we made made it into PC Magazine’s 100 Favorite Blogs list! Here’s what they had to say about us:

"This forward-thinking blog divides its focus among news and opinions on current cutting-edge science and technology, its impact on culture and people, and extrapolations on how all this will affect our future. Futurismic also features enjoyable "speculative fiction"—sci-fi stories. It’s a feast for those who love to think about the future in all its manifestations."

Well, we do try!

We’re alongside some real heavyweights in that list – sites like BoingBoing and Gawker – and to be included is a great vindication of all the work that goes into making Futurismic what it is. And so, on behalf of the whole team, I’d like to say thanks to the PC Magazine writers – we hope we continue to make the grade, and we’ll even forgive you for accusing us of publishing "sci-fi"! 😉

And to any new readers who’ve arrived here after reading that article, welcome! We hope you like what you find, and we hope you’ll stick around for more.

[tags]Futurismic, favorite, bloggers, PC Magazine[/tags]
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Fleshjet? Bio-printing making progress

Printed cell scaffold Bioprinting – the re-purposing of inkjet technology for constructing biological tissues – is something we’ve remarked on before here at Futurismic. But it seems deserving of another mention, as a new method called "pressure assisted spinning" promises to handle the living cells more gently by using air pressure instead of mechanical force, enabling the construction of tissue scaffolds ready to act as a medium for growing new bones and organs – or for use as bandages. [Image by Suwan Jayasinghe; copied from NewScientist article]

[tags]biology, medicine, bioprinting, technology[/tags]
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Friday Free Fiction for October 12th

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There may be late arrivals that I’ve missed this week, as my writing duties elsewhere mean I’ll probably be at an album launch party at a dingy music-venue bar somewhere in London when this post goes live … I know, it’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it! 🙂 Any fiction that appeared too late for me to compile will be rolled into next week’s post.

Any which way, it’s a thin week – so remind writer friends and editors of webzines to send me an email about new material, or just do so on their behalf. So, here we go:

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Project Gutenberg adds stories from Stanley G. Weinbaum: "The Ideal", "The Point of View", "Pygmalion’s Spectacles" and "The Worlds of If".

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If you’ve any sense, you’re probably checking back regularly or subscribed via RSS, but for those who aren’t in the know, Subterranean Online has added stories by David Prill and Chris Roberson to its latest ongoing edition.

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Not quite fiction in the traditional sense, but worth a look anyway – Steampunk Magazine‘s Guide to the Apocalypse is available as a free PDF download.

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Paul McAuley has posted the first three chapters of his latest novel, Cowboy Angels, for you to try out.

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An email arrived from Fred Himebaugh:

"I’m writing a series of SF fiction openers as an exercise, and blogging them.  Although the posts are nominally openers, the effect is quite similar to flash fiction, so I think your readers will enjoy them as stand-alone stories.  I’m adding new stories at the rate of two or so per day, and I intend to keep at it for at least a week.

My blog’s topics are science fiction, choral music, choral music in science fiction, and science fiction in choral music.  And zeppelins."

An interesting blend of topics, for certain. Cheers, Fred!

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Martin McGrath makes the only confirmed appearance from the Friday Flash Fictioneers by having posted "Another Funny Thing Happened in Hyperspace" a few days early. But I’m confident that the usual suspects will provide in their usual reliable manner, so go and check for some fictional nuggets from Gareth L Powell, Gareth D Jones, Neil Beynon, and Shaun C Green. If all has gone according to plan, my piece called "Harvest for the Gods" should be available too.

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Have a good weekend!

[tags]free, fiction, online, stories[/tags]
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Thought-controlled avatars for Second Life

Second Life avatars While it may obviously be some time before this technology becomes widely available to the average consumer, I’m fascinated to see a Japanese team of scientists developing a thought-control interface device that can direct the movement of a Second Life avatar. Something like that could really revolutionize the platform … although given the slightly hysterical media reports of, er, dubious pastimes in the virtual world, I’m sure people will leap to conclusions about why users would want their hands free … [Image by Pathfinder Linden]

[tags]metaverse, Second Life, interface, brain[/tags]
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Space colonisation – Ceres first, Mars second?

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The dwarf planet Ceres An interesting post over at Colony Worlds suggests that the dwarf planet of Ceres would be a better bet for early human colonisation than Mars – it has supplies of water ice and valuable minerals, but a far shallower gravity well, making it a more viable proposition from logistical and economic perspectives. Personally, I think getting a few working orbital colonies around our home planet would be a sound first move … but after that, why not? [Image from Wikipedia]

[tags]space, Mars, Ceres, colonisation, economics[/tags]