Blog

Is Big Oil the Future of Energy?

oil barrelsHere we are in middle America paying $4.00 a gallon. Yeah, yeah, Europe, you don’t have to say it. I already know. But in a country where the idea of mass transportation is two people car-pooling to work, four dollars is a lot of money, even in a “fuel-efficient” car. [image by tvol]

So what’s the solution? Big Oil is being forced to search for new methods by which to acquire their resources, which means that the cost of extracting the oil from new places will raise the cost some more. Or, there’s the highly debated use of methane hydrates under the sea floor (also a costly means of new energy).

It’s a curious situation. In times of need, we – as humans – tend to produce something grand. But with oil companies making billions by the day, what desire do they have to rush things? Are we on the cusp of a new era of clean, efficient, and renewable energy? Or are we on the verge of personal bankruptcy because we own a garage full of H3’s?

Blog

The Matter of Mind

It is always difficult to predict the next big revolution in science and technology. However it seems extremely likely that the scientific and technological history of the next thirty years will be dominated by discoveries and revelations about that most complex of organs: the human brain.

The latest discovery by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh reported in The Guardian concerns how words are encoded in the brain. The scientists have developed a device that can read a person’s mind from brain scans.

Once it has been trained on an individual subject’s thoughts, the computer model can analyse new brain scan images and work out which noun a person is thinking about – even with words that the model has never encountered before.

The model is based on the way nouns are associated in the brain with verbs such as see, hear, listen and taste. The research will inevitably raise fears that scientists could soon be able to read a person’s mind without them realising.

Unfortunately prospective telepaths are going to be disappointed: first because the device needs to be “trained” for each individual and secondly because the person as to be lying perfectly still in an MRI scanner.

According to one of the researchers, computer scientist Tom Mitchell:

“…the brain represents the meaning of a concrete noun in areas of the brain associated with how people sense it or manipulate it. The meaning of an apple, for instance, is represented in brain areas responsible for tasting, for smelling, for chewing. An apple is what you do with it. Our work is a small but important step in breaking the brain’s code.”

Meanwhile in Japan a paralysed man has been able to manipulate a virtual Internet character:mind

The patient, who has suffered paralysis for more than 30 years, can barely bend his fingers due to a progressive muscle disease so cannot use a mouse or keyboard in the traditional way.

In the experiment, he wore headgear with three electrodes monitoring brain waves related to his hands and legs. Even though he cannot move his legs, he imagined that his character was walking.

The potential in this research is mind-blowing. Imagine a video game controlled by thought. Imagine the educational opportunities of fully immersive and fully interactive virtual worlds. Many people already live a large part of their lives in virtual relities of one sort or another. And if they can respond to your merest thought they would become ever more compelling places.

[First story from The Guardian and PhysOrg][Second story from Physorg][image by Redvers]

Fiction

VERITAS NOS LIBERABIT by Kristin Janz

24 Comments

This month’s story comes from Kristin Janz, who took a rather different approach to narrative structure; “Veritas Nos Liberabit” is a story told in emails about how emails can tell stories.

So read on, and don’t forget to leave Kristin some feedback in the comments at the bottom. Enjoy!

Veritas Nos Liberabit

by Kristin Janz

From: jess hentzchel <jessicahentzchel@gmail.com>
Sent: August 1, 20__ (12:42 a.m., EDT)
To: Amy Pearson <apearson@eslpharm.com>
Subject: Dancing bear – kind of funny (fwd)
Attachments: dancingbear.gif

Amy – Check out the dancing bear, it’s sort of cute.

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From: Amy Pearson <apearson@eslpharm.com>
Sent: August 1, 20__ (9:23 a.m., EDT)
To: jess hentzchel <jessicahentzchel@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Dancing bear – kind of funny (fwd)

This isn’t like you, Jess. Forwarding cute animated graphics of anthropomorphic predators? What next, angel poetry penned by senile old ladies in the Midwest? Or – heaven forbid – “Footprints”?

So it’s official. David is getting divorced. I overheard him telling Vikram in the cafeteria this morning.

Amy

#

From: Jonathan Lu <jlu@eslpharm.com>
Sent: August 1, 20__ (9:31 a.m., EDT)
To: Amy Pearson <apearson@eslpharm.com>
CC: Medicinal Chemistry
Subject: Re: Dancing bear – kind of funny (fwd)

> Jonathan – Check out the dancing bear, it’s sort of cute.

Amy, why you send this to me? I don’t know what it means, Veritas Nos Liberabit. It is French?

#

Continue reading VERITAS NOS LIBERABIT by Kristin Janz →

Blog

I Can’t Believe How Clean Your Bombs Are

2 Comments

Bombs being dropped from a B-52Two scientists have put together a bomb that could be (and I quote) “more powerful and safer to handle than TNT and other conventional explosives and would also be more environmentally friendly.”

Environmentally-friendly bombs? I’m not a war-monger, but what’s the sense in that? Bomb the hell out of their city, but make sure the trees don’t die? It just seems ridiculous. In an age when being “green” is marketable for a politician or trendy for soccer-moms, even this seems a bit of a stretch. I think Tony Stark would have to laugh at that. [image by James Gordon]

Blog

Friday Free Fiction for 30th May

It’s that time of week again, when thoughts turn to leaving the office, not working for a few days … and reading some stories. Here’s a whole bunch of good stuff to get your eyeballs tucked into.

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The weekly selection from Manybooks.net, including a couple of early pieces from sf legend Robert Silverberg:

  • “Impact” by Irving Cox – “They were languorous, anarchic, shameless in their pleasures . . . were they lower than man . . . or higher?”
  • “The Nothing Equation” by Tom Godwin – “The space ships were miracles of power and precision; the men who manned them, rich in endurance and courage. Every detail had been checked and double checked; every detail except …”
  • “Postmark Ganymede” by Robert Silverberg – “Consider the poor mailman of the future. To “sleet and snow and dead of night”–things that must not keep him from his appointed rounds–will be added, sub-zero void, meteors, and planets that won’t stay put. Maybe he’ll decide that for six cents an ounce it just ain’t worth it.”
  • “The Hunted Heroes” by Robert Silverberg – “The planet itself was tough enough–barren, desolate, forbidding; enough to stop the most adventurous and dedicated. But they had to run head-on against a mad genius who had a motto: Death to all Terrans!” NOOOOO!
  • “The Man Who Hated Mars” by Gordon Randall Garrett – “To escape from Mars, all Clayton had to do was the impossible. Break out of a crack-proof exile camp–get onto a ship that couldn’t be boarded–smash through an impenetrable wall of steel. Perhaps he could do all these things, but he discovered that Mars did evil things to men; that he wasn’t even Clayton any more. He was only–THE MAN WHO HATED MARS.” NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!1

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Via SF Signal we discover another what seems to be some sort of alternative or addition to services like Manybooks.net that has a much slicker front-end, plus charts and all that web2.0 stuff.

The titles all look pretty familiar (lots of Doctorow and Stross) but you might want to go poke around the science fiction section of Feedbooks anyway. Just in case. 😉

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Via a number of places, but I think I spotted it at Scalzi‘s first (so that’s who I’m quoting):

“Australian science fiction writer Simon Hayes and Freemantle Publishing have posted the first of Hayes’s satirical Hal Spacejock novels online for you to download and try. Simon sends me copies of the series from time to time […] and they’re definitely fun, and (intentionally) humorous science fiction is hard enough to find as it is. Give it a look and if you like it, they’ll arrange to send you some actual books, at a discount of both the cover price and […] international postage.”

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Via Friday Flash Fictioneer Gareth D Jones:

“… a ‘Fiction Special’ issue of Wales-based ezine Estronomicon is now online for you to download, featuring ten short stories.”

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Missed this one last week: Captain Bruce Sterling recommends heading over to HarperCollins, where you can currently read the entirety of Invisible Armies by Jon Evans:

(((That’s a pretty good book, actually. It’s kind of a tough-as-nails technothriller from a leftie Seattle 99er perspective. People who aren’t morons and like thriller novels ought to read this.)))

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Elizabeth Bear and Emma Bull have released the “season finale” novel Refining Fire over at Shadow Unit this week in daily instalments; I think the whole thing should be there by the weekend. If you’ve not checked it out yet, there’s quarter of a million words of free fiction there now – and that’s just the first season.

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Via Lou Anders, there’s a neatly collated selection of free-to-read sample chapters over at Pyr Books.

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Michael Roberts slips in just behind the cut-off deadline with another Tale of the Singularity: “Lord Cthulhu Walks the Desert“.

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And finally, your selection from the Friday Flash Fictioneers:

  • Phred Serenissima‘s story from last week is “Garden Variety“; this week’s is called “Choices“.
  • Gareth D Jones decries the ravages of war (and drugs) in “The Hastening of Battle“.
  • Neil Beynon proves that you can get inspiration from blog posts here at Futurismic in “Touched“
  • Don’t worry; Shaun C Green‘s “Spaceman” isn’t a cover version of the old 4 Non Blondes track.
  • Gaie Sebold gets all po-mo with “Little Red Hoodie“

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That’s your dose for the week, folks – should be enough to keep you going. Don’t forget to feed us your tips, plugs and suggestions as always. Have a great weekend!

Presenting the fact and fiction of tomorrow since 2001