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Fund new gadgets with your old ones

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In four years, I’ve been through 3 or 4 cell phones, a couple digital cameras and 2 iPods.  Not to mention the computer hardware that’s gone belly-up on me.  So what can I do with all this stuff?  Toss it in the trash?  Recycle?  The toxic chemicals will pollute, and recyclers haven’t been as scrupulous as we might like – shipping this stuff off to poor countries where circuit boards are burnt to get at their valuable metals.

Now, a socially-responsible company will buy your old consumer electronics off you, refurbish them and sell them on the street, all in an effort to reduce e-waste and improve sustainability.  Second Generation out of Massachusetts will calculate the price then give you a printable shipping label which you slap on a box and send off.  After the items have had their check, you get yours.  If I were in the States, I’d certainly make use of this.  Check out this article at Ars Technica for an in-depth review of Second Generation’s process.

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Asteroid may hit Mars at end of January

The asteroid is part of a small group of rocks that cross both Earth and Mars orbitsIf you’ve watched Deep Impact and Armageddon a hundred times and still want to know what a real asteroid impact would look like, mark January 30th 2008 on your calenders. On that date, the path of Asteroid 2007 WD5 passes perilously close to our neighbour Mars and may or may not hit it.

The NEO (near-earth object) was found in November and marked because it also passes close to Earth. Analysis of its path say there’s a 1 in 75 chance the 50m rock will impact on the red planet, causing a crater up to half a mile wide.

[via Chris Mckitterick, image by NASA]

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Ender’s Game, here we come

The military and video games have had a long history together, going back to flight simulators before WWII.  Of course, there’s been America’s Army, but that was a recruitment tool, a way to gloss over the downsides of the Army, namely the permanency of death and having to follow orders.

So where are our “Nintendo soldiers”?  Turns out they’re currently working on a suitable training simulation for the US Army.  Heck, there’s even a trade magazine devoted to these simulators.

The question isn’t “what are these simulators?”, but “what are they not?”  Well, they’re not going to teach you how to shoot and they won’t get you buff.  What they will do is provide tactics lessons in a classroom environment that can then be put to use on the training grounds.  For more info on the what and why, check out this essay by a training games company, and this paper from the National Defense University.  They’re not just random commercial games slapped together, but designed from the ground up to meet training demands.

I’ve played FPS games online since the good ol’ days of Doom II.  And with some of the squad-based ones simple tactics can make or break your game.  Me?  I charge in and promptly die.  And then proceed to do it again.

(via DailyTech)  (image from renato guerra)

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Friday Free Fiction for 21 December

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Looks like things are winding down for the holidays – I know I certainly am! But there’s still free fiction to be had …

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Much of the following comes courtesy of the SF Signal gang.

Recently-free fiction at ManyBooks.net:

Jeff Patterson continues his tradition of Christmas stories with “The Harbinger of All Things Glorious“.

Bonus! Free audio fiction: SFF Audio has a reading of “Trunk And Disorderly” by Charles Stross.

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Chris Roberson rolls out a festive re-run: “Timmy Gromp Saves Christmas“.

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Oh, so you’d like some non-fiction, would you? Well, thank MetaFilter for this little pointer:

Gutenberg-e now offers open access to Columbia University Press history ebooks.

“These award winning monographs, coordinated with the American Historical Association, afford emerging scholars new possibilities for online publications, weaving traditional narrative with digitized primary sources, including maps, photographs, and oral histories.”

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Make way for the Friday Flash Fiction crew … a few troops short, but still soldiering on despite the weather!

Somewhat appropriately for the season, Dan Pawley has “A Kind Of Homecoming“.

Neil Beynon has either been at the funny mushrooms, or he’s visited a different “Centre Point” to the one in London.

Gareth L Powell will twist your head with “The Red King’s Nursery“.

Very appropriately for the season, Gareth D Jones is “Frozen“.

And yours truly chronicles the adventures of “Alex in Hinterland“.

Flash fiction bonus! As noted by Gareth D Jones, Guy Hogan doesn’t just post flash fiction at his blog, but provides tips and advice on writing the stuff too.

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Looks like that’s your lot for this week – but then I expect you’ll have plenty of other stuff to keep you busy, too.

From me (and on behalf of the whole Futurismic gang) have the best holiday you possibly can, whatever you may call it in your household! Take care, folks.

[tags]freedom, fiction, stories, online[/tags]
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Striking writers look to open new internet ventures

Whilst I’ve talked in the past about the future of online content, it appears for some writers an internet based career is rapidy becoming present, not future. The LA Times reports that a number of the writers and creators involved in the Hollywood writer strike are in talks with venture capitalists and advertisers about creating their own content sites. It may be that if this strike continues long enough, some writers may not come back at all to the studios. It’s also interesting to note that the words quoted most by the writers invovled is ‘United Artists’, the organisation that structured good deals for creators way back in Hollywood history.

On the web, there’s also a good round table discussion featuring Tobias Buckell, Pyr editor Lou Anders and David Louis Edelman at SF Signal about the use of the internet to promote writers via community, rather than advertising. Charles Stross also had a good rant about the idiocy of the Kindle earlier in the month.

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