First hump-day of the year… sheesh. I don’t know about you, but I’ve a hankering for some sensawunda. And for me, nothing throws that switch quite like being reminded of how tiny and insignificant we are in the greater scheme of things. This video [via Lou Anders] will do exactly that. Enjoy!
Category Archives: Blog
Protective workwear supplied: cleaning the Burj Dubai
File under science fictional employment opportunities: the Burj Dubai (that ludicrously huge tower in Dubai which we’ve mentioned here before) is finally open for business (if there’s any business left, natch), which means they need to keep the thing clean for tourists and visiting dignitaries – quite a challenge when you’re talking about a building that clocks in at over 800m in height. [image courtesy Wikipedia]
There are 23,000 glass panels on that thing, most of which will be cleaned by BMUs (robot Building Maintenance Units), but some of the uppermost sections just can’t be reached without using old-fashioned meatworkers with ropes and harnesses… and to protect them from the harsh sun up there, the workers wear a get-up much like a spacesuit, complete with a backpack full of electrolytic “sports beverage” to keep them hydrated.
Certainly not a job for anyone with phobias of heights. Or claustrophobia, for that matter… [via @Ballardian]
Cheer up, emo writer – maybe positive sf really could make you more positive.
Well, it turns out my mother may have been right after all* – listening to music with positive messages in the lyrics encourages consideration and empathetic behaviour in teenagers, according to research at the University of Sussex here in the UK. Apparently, people who listen Michael Jackson’s “Heal the World” are more likely to help pick up some knocked-over pencils than those who’ve listened to a neutral or negative tune. [image by Vagamundos]
(I’ve obviously been emotionally mutilated by a lifetime of listening to hirsute and/or black-clad people torturing guitars… if presented with a bunch of pencils in the presence of Michael Jackson songs, my first instinct would be to jam one up each nostril and headbutt the nearest desk until I achieved release.)
But this throws an interesting light on Jetse de Vries’ call for optimistic science fiction – if the same psychology pertains to the written word as it does to music, perhaps science fiction readers (and writers) really would be more positive in their outlook if there were more stories written in such a mode.
[ * – This sentence is purely included for stylistic effect; as should be completely obvious, my mother was always right about everything. ]
See-through goldfish
Every now and again, scientific research comes up with something that can be marketed beyond the laboratory circuit. Researchers at Mie University and Nagoya University in central Japan have just perfected the genetic manipulations required to make a transparent goldfish, and they’re hot on the tails of another group who developed a transparent frog a few years ago, which they’re now planning to start selling as pets. [image credit AFP, borrowed from linked article; contact for immediate take-down if required]
These transparent animals are a response to increasing pressure from animal rights groups over dissections, as they provide a rare opportunity to see the 3-dimensional arrangement of internal organs in a living creature… but who knows what demands might be created once these critters hit the pet stores?
US$330,000 for a virtual space station?
For the vast majority of readers here, I expect virtual economies consume very little of your meatspace money, if any at all. But some folk place a huge real-money value on intangible virtual items… via Cheryl Morgan comes news of a guy who just spuffed US$330,000 on a virtual space station in the Entropia Universe MMO:
Entropia Universe is well known for its “real cash economy,” where $1 can buy you 10 PEDs (Project Entropia dollars) in the virtual world. The Crystal Palace is a huge virtual space station that orbits the Planet Calypso.
Well the auction just ended, and one “lucky” man (Buzz “Erik” Lightyear) has just won the Crystal Palace for 3,300,000 PED. If you haven’t figured it already, that translates to $330,000 USD.
[…] the purchase may be strategic — the owner stands to make money off the shops, transactions, and activities that occur on his virtual space station. And if online gaming and virtual currency continue their growth trends in 2010, the man could potentially make his money back.
As pointed out, a purchase of that size currently screams “rich guy with money to waste on having fun”(which I can’t bring myself to begrudge entirely), especially if you look at the video clips of the space station’s interior (which looks a lot like a custom level for the Doom engine, IMHO).
But virtual economies and entirely intangible businesses haven’t gone away, despite the headlines dying off periodically… I fully expect we’ll see more of this in the year to come.