Does Not Equal is a webcomic by Sarah Ennals – check out the pre-Futurismic archives, and the strips that have been published here previously.
[ Be sure to check out the Does Not Equal Cafepress store for webcomic merchandise featuring Canadians with geometrically-shaped heads! ]
Sven Johnson reports back from the Future Imperfect once again, rounding up the hottest body-mods, elective surgeries, prosthetic add-ons and extensions of the human condition from a year that’s probably less distant from our own than we suspect.
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I don’t normally care for lists, especially at this time of year when we’re inundated with “Best of the Year” lists, “Worst of the Year” lists, and of course the obligatory “New Year’s Resolution List” lists. However, as a pre-emptive strike, I thought I’d jump in with my own contribution; something perhaps a bit different than the usual fare. So without further delay, here’s my “Top Ten Substitutive Pieces List”. Continue reading The Top Ten Substitutive Pieces List
Booklife by Jeff VanderMeer
Tachyon Publications, November 2009; 330pp; US$14.95 RRP – ISBN13: 9781892391902
There are dozens – possibly even hundreds – of books out there that purport to tell you how to be a writer. Continue reading BOOK REVIEW: Booklife, by Jeff VanderMeer
By the time this post goes live, I (and doubtless most other Brits) will be preparing to celebrate the turning of another year… so I thought I’d take this opportunity to thank you all for following Futurismic in 2009, and to wish you all a great 2010.
The new year promises – by pretty much any metric you care to use – to be even more full of big changes and wild stories, as the line between us and the unevenly distributed future becomes ever more fuzzy and ill-defined. We’ll be doing our best to map it here at Futurismic; I hope you’ll come along for the ride.
Happy new year! 🙂
I had to agree with Jay Lake when he Tweeted that ‘Any article with the line “Any monkeys sent into space will be supervised by robots.” is totally FTW’. [image by kiewic]
And here is that article… which is actually just a short post on the Freakonomics blog pointing to a longer piece at the Telegraph, which describes Russian plans to simulate a Mars mission using simian cosmonauts:
The Institute is in preliminary talks with Russia’s Cosmonautics Academy about preparing monkeys for a simulated Mars mission that could lay the groundwork for sending an ape to the Red Planet, he said.
Such an initiative would build on Mars-500, a joint Russian-European project that saw six human volunteers confined in a capsule in Moscow for 120 days earlier this year to simulate a Mars mission.
Mr Mikvabia said: “Earlier this programme was aimed at sending cosmonauts, people (to Mars).
“But given the length of the flight to Mars, and given the cosmic rays for which we don’t have adequate protection over such a long trip, discussions have focused recently on sending an ape instead of a person.”
[…]
If Russia pursues the idea of sending monkeys to Mars, Mikvabia’s institute could become the site of an enclosed “biosphere” where apes would be kept for long periods to simulate space flights.
The Institute said a robot would accompany the first primate to Mars to feed and look after the ape.
Monkeys en route to Mars with their robot overseers? There’s a whole raft of story ideas right there…