We Are Living In Science Fiction (Again)

April 5th, 2009 1:19 am

When I was reading that story about the Canadian researched who uncovered the “GhostNet”–the gigantic system of compromised computers around the world, one that appears to be run out of China, and to target organizations of interest to China–my first thought was “Huh, that’s almost right out of Stross‘ Halting State.

Apparently Charlie thought so too, since he just posted about it, closing with the lines:

I hereby declare HALTING STATE obsolete, eight years ahead of schedule!

My work here is done.

This is particularly on target given Stross’ earlier ponderings on the difficulty of writing “near-future SF“.

Of course, it isn’t just the “near-future” stuff that is in danger of becoming obsoleted by the progress of time.

Take, for example, Karl Schroeder’s lovely and idea-dense novel Lady Of Mazes. It’s set in a much more distant future, and one that’s significantly more technologically distanced from us than Stross’ book, but it’s still vulnerable to becoming dated.

Karl himself points this out, in a post that looks at how a contemporary reading of some of the stuff in that book is a much less challenging exercise than it would have been at the book’s release. This revolves around how ideas/concepts/lifestyles that would have seemed alien and strange to most readers when it was a new novel–albeit alien and strange in a very well extrapolated and worked-out way–are much more pedestrian already.

Yeah, he’s talking about Twitter. (I’m still not doing it.)

I always thought reading SF would immunize me against future shock, but I’m used to the incubation period being a lot longer than it is lately, that’s for sure.

Posted in Books | 1 Comment »

Scary Creatures From The World Of Science

April 4th, 2009 11:32 pm

Reading a story about a colony of billions of amoeba, a colony so big that it was visible across a 40 foot area is pretty spooky.

Goopy

Reading further in the article about:

  • the fact that these are “clonal” amoeba–all genetically identical copies,
  • the fact that these amoeba can apparently work together and function as a kind of hive organism,
  • the fact that the colony just washed away (or, to use a scarier term, “dispersed”),
  • the fact that there are other amoeba who can reach visible size,
  • and the supposition that there may be giant amoeba, or amoeba colonies, all around us,

was enough to make me think that there wouldn’t be another “strange lifeform” piece of science journalism that would creep me out quite so much this week.

I was wrong about that though.

Yuck

That thing is a four-foot long coral-eating worm. Apparently it’s the solution to a nice little science mystery:

Staff at the award-winning attraction had been puzzled by violent attacks on their fragile living reefs – in some cases the corals had been literally cut in half.

After staking out the display for several weeks, aquarists decided as a last resort to take it apart rock by rock.

Halfway through the process the terrifying perpetrator was finally revealed – a monstrous four-foot-long giant reef worm.

To me that looks like something a particularly twisted special effects designer would come up with when working on a post-apocalyptic horror movie.

The scientists agree, by the way:

“It really does look like something out of a horror movie! It’s over four feet long with these bizarre-looking jaws. Having done some research we also discovered that it is covered with thousands of bristles which are capable of inflicting a sting resulting in permanent numbness’.”

Yikes.

Posted in Science and Technology | 2 Comments »

Smart Things: Sterling on the death of editorial cartoons

April 3rd, 2009 11:09 pm

“Man, that's like seeing a stake put through the heart of the 20th century. Watching banks fail is a picnic compared to this.”

—Bruce Sterling
in “You know newspapers are screwed when even the CARTOONISTS catch it“.

Posted in Smart Things | No Comments »

The Warrior’s Lament

April 2nd, 2009 10:51 pm

Today I ordered a copy of Possibilities, an EP by Sierra Noble. I’d never heard of the ridiculously young Métis from Manitoba prior to today–which actually kind of surprises me–but as soon as I encountered her on the web today I knew I was going to buy the album.

What I encountered today (indirectly, via Penguin Eggs) that made up my mind was a video of Noble performing her composition, “The Warrior’s Lament” at the 90th Anniversary of the Assault on Vimy Ridge at the Vimy Memorial in France a couple of years ago.

I expect this will mean more to the Canadians reading, but take a second to watch this:

She was 17 when that was recorded. She wrote the piece when she was 111. Man. Two years earlier she had been involved in the Aboriginal Spiritual Journey, which probably laid the groundwork for that performance–there’s a bit of her writing about the experience up at the Veterans Affairs site.

I think my father-in-law was actually at the ceremony, and I may give him some light abuse for not mentioning this performance to me. It sure looks and sounds great in the video.

Noble has an MP3 of the performance at her site. You can hear more of her stuff, generally a lot more upbeat, at a CBC concert on demand from last year, and her MySpace page.

Not ordered today, but I swear sometime before I die: a close to actual-size museum quality reproduction of William Longstaff’s painting The Battle Of Vimy Ridge. And maybe I’ll work a little embedded electronics into the frame, so it can play that tune.

  1. Actually, a little work with Google reveals that she wrote it as a lament for her grandmother at age 11, and subtly changed it as it transformed into “The Métis Prayer” and then “The Warrior’s Lament”.(back)

Posted in Music, Storytime | 1 Comment »

Head explodes again

March 24th, 2009 10:35 pm

The Texas Board of Education will vote this week on a new science curriculum designed to challenge the guiding principle of evolution, a step that could influence what is taught in biology classes across the nation.

The proposed curriculum change would prompt teachers to raise doubts that all life on Earth is descended from common ancestry. Texas is such a huge textbook market that many publishers write to the state’s standards, then market those books nationwide.

via Texas School Board Set to Vote on Challenge to Evolution WSJ.com.

Do I even have to say it?

Posted in Head-Explodes | 2 Comments »

The Blagger’s Guide, et. al.

March 23rd, 2009 11:52 pm

I had almost 12 hours in the car yesterday, and for most of that time I listening to various things on my iPod. Obviously there was some music–you can’t road trip without music–but these days I spend a lot more time on non-music content. I finished listening to a kids’ book I had been listening to with my daughter1. I wrapped up an audiobook of a science fiction book I read a few years ago, one of a series I’m working through again on audio when I’m driving.

I listened to some BBC radio plays: one a series of four episodes doing comedy history around the Crusades (with Hugh Grant, apparently), and one an adaptation of a Japanese SF story.

But the standout thing on this trip was the comedy history of music, The Blagger’s Guide. I listened to the complete first series while driving through Maine, and really, really enjoyed it. David Quantick amused me for more than a couple of hours.

It was available on BBC’s Listen Again service for a while, but it appears to not be there now. I’m sure I have no idea how someone could get a copy to listen to at the moment.

It didn’t start out utterly awesome–the first episode was interesting, but didn’t blow me away. During the second episode things suddenly turned from “pretty good” to “why yes, I shall listen to this entire series”. I can mark the exact point at when it happened to; it was during the “blagger’s guide to punk” section, right about here:

Lots of good stuff there, and then the third episode really cracked me up with an utter thrashing of “White Reggae”, which included this notable bit at the beginning:

Is it wrong that this little clip might have triggered some repressed and traumatic memories from the years when I lived one city over from North America’s largest Oktoberfest?

By the fifth episode I was enjoying things so much that I didn’t even mind when Quantick absolutely ravaged the music that got me through high school:

Actually as we got toward the end of that segment I was actually getting offended on behalf of my favourite band from high school days, a prog rock band that seemed to not even rate a mention as Quantick shredded the entire genre… and then he ended with this, which actually made me laugh out loud

How can someone hate prog that much, and still love Kate Bush as much as Quantick clearly does? It confuses me. Still, it’s entertaining to listen to.

When I ran out of episodes of that I was still in the music history mood, so I rolled into Alan Cross‘ Guide To Alternative Rock, in which I found a number of really weird facts and coincidences. The coverage in Cross’ stuff is in much greater detail–I only got through The Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop, and David Bowie before I ran out of highway–and is a much less dynamic presentation than Quantick’s, but it shows a lot of research. And frankly, knowing some of the jobs Lou Reed had during various stages of his early career kind of freaks me out a little. And that whole thing about Iggy and Billy Joel as session musicians (who never met) on a well-known girl group single…

I’d recommend the Cross as well, but don’t listen to it right after Quantick, since the presentation suffers a bit by the comparison.

  1. Hey, I needed closure on the plot.(back)

Posted in Music | 2 Comments »

Possibly Meaningless Anecdotal Observations

March 22nd, 2009 11:37 pm

I once again had the opportunity today to spend some time with the Department of Homeland Security’s border people at the American border. Since I’ve spent a not insignificant amount of time with them–mostly in the same office, at the same border-crossing–over the years, I have some idea of how these things will go, and what to expect.

Today, I noticed two changes.

The first was a surface change–the scary pictures were gone. Over the last several years, I’ve spent a number of hours sitting in border station offices while American border officials convince themselves that I am legitimate business traveller who isn’t violating any of the rules, and since there aren’t many things to do while sitting waiting for the process to run itself out1 I’ve observed everything inside the station in great detail.

One thing that I always found kind of creepy was the collection of head shots of various officials. These specifically included Bush, and the head of DHS, plus another suit who I assume is the head of the border part of the department. On past trips, when I felt that I was being stopped primarily because some redneck wanted to show me his power, I’ve had staring contents with Bush, who I considered part of the social background that enabled these power-tripping nobodies.

Anyway, this time there were no pictures. Where they had been were just naked picture hangers.

Which lead me to spend some time wondering whether:

A) new pictures have not yet been issued by the new administration
B) the new administration isn’t into issuing photos like this
C) this particular detachment is staunchly Republican and are not posting the new pictures

or some other scenario.

Yes, this is the kind of thing you think of when you have nothing else to do, but wonder how long it will be this time.

The other thing, though, was a little deeper, and that was a marked absence of that very power-tripping functionary attitude. It might have been the luck of the draw–maybe this was the good shift or something–or just a perception of mine with no objective basis, but it sure seemed like the proceedings (not just mine, but those of the other people in the station as well) were conducted more politely, and with more respect, than on previous occasions. The sense was much more “just doing our jobs” and much less “look how much we can fuck with you if we want to” than on other trips. Which is not to say everyone there was cool–there was one officer in particular who wanted the guy he was dealing with to know that he had ALL THE POWER (”and you better call me sir, at my country’s border”)–but the ratio seemed to be dramatically tilted toward the professional compared to other times I’ve been stopped there.

Again, I don’t know if there’s any validity to this, or if it was a quirk of chance or perception, but just for a day or two I’d like to think that maybe this whole “end of the cowboy government” and “culture of openness and accountability” stuff is actually filtering down.

  1. Wouldn’t it be great if DHS provided magazines–imagine what they would be!(back)

Posted in Political, Storytime | No Comments »

Peaks of rage

March 21st, 2009 11:18 pm

You know, if I posted every time Harper’s government took and action, or announced a policy direction, that I disagreed with or found repugnant, this blog would be one long bile-laden rant. So I mostly take the “ignore them and hope they go away” strategy, coupled with the occasional rant when something particularly ludicrous or vile happens.

Here’s a couple of those:

Apparently Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and minister Kenney, think that the government of Canada should be excluding people from visiting this country based on whether or not they publicly agree with Harper government policy. Yes, publicly disagreeing with Harper policy is apparently enough to get you banned from entering Canada. Even if you’re an elected member of British parliament.

I wonder if I’ll be allowed back in after my next Boston trip.

Meanwhile, our science minister (who, incidentally is known to people in Edmonton as an avowed creationist, and whose campaign was endorsed by ultra-conservative groups) when asked if he believed in evolution, refused to answer, saying his religion was no one’s business. This somewhat misses the point, since A) the answer presumes the question is one that religion has any bearing on, and B) assumes that if he thinks the question is religious that this isn’t relevant to the Canadian people in their science minister.

It just gets better, of course, since he later flip-flopped and came out strong saying he believed in evolution, but in the same statement indicated that he is utterly ignorant of what the idea of evolution is:

“We are evolving every year, every decade. That’s a fact, whether it is to the intensity of the sun, whether it is to, as a chiropractor, walking on cement versus anything else, whether it is running shoes or high heels, of course we are evolving to our environment. But that’s not relevant and that is why I refused to answer the question. The interview was about our science and tech strategy, which is strong.”

This stuff isn’t just enraging… it’s embarrassing.

Posted in Head-Explodes, Political | No Comments »

Aside: GOP Fiscal Policy

March 20th, 2009 12:29 am

Finally, someone has realized how to use the power of the web to expose the deep power of GOP economic thinking to the masses on the web. Pop over to the GOP Problem Solver to find out how to solve all your problems. (The second stage joke actually made me laugh out loud.)

Posted in Aside, Political | No Comments »

Aside: 1500 Posts

March 20th, 2009 12:18 am

That was the 1500th post. That seems utterly ridiculous.

Posted in Aside, Blog cliches | No Comments »

SF Authors Say Smart Things: KSR on climate & social justice

March 19th, 2009 11:14 pm

Does the word postcapitalism look odd to you? It should, because you hardly ever see it. We have a blank spot in our vision of the future. Perhaps we think that history has somehow gone away. In fact, history is with us now more than ever, because we are at a crux in the human story.

That’s from the conclusion of Kim Stanley Robinson’s short piece, “Time to end the multigenerational Ponzi scheme“, at What Matters.

If you’ve been following Robinson’s last few books, you’ll know he’s both passionate and extremely knowledgeable about these issues. And this piece can be consumed pretty quickly, but will leave you with things to think about for quite a while.

Posted in Smart Things | No Comments »

The Latest Addition

March 17th, 2009 11:49 pm

The latest addition the collection of stuff hanging around my house: a signed print of Wondermark #442: In which Beth keeps her Books, which I have had framed, and which is now hanging on the door to my office/library1 for obvious reasons. (Apparently Sarah told her mom tonight that Sarah and I are “bibliofiblioians”, and that means “animals who love books”. Close enough.)

If you want to get a sense of whether or not Wondermark will work for you, you could probably decide just by looking at this page. Or, you know, start with the most recent and work the archives. I had seen links to it here and there around the web, but didn’t really get into it until I got a copy of Beards Of Our Forefathers. Like many webcomics, or hell, comics period, it’s hit and miss, but when it hits it hits nicely. I am certainly looking forward to Clever Tricks to Stave Off Death. (Yes, even though I can read the stuff on the web, I am looking forward to the dead tree version. Sue me.)

  1. Can I coin a new word for that? I mean I could just use study, but that’s kind of fusty. How about “offbrary”? “Librice” (pronounced “lyebris”, of course)?(back)

Posted in Hanging, One-and-done | 1 Comment »

Aside: Twice as interesting as Twilight, 60 times shorter.

March 17th, 2009 11:38 pm

The Vampire of Venice. A true story, courtesy of the BBC.

Posted in Aside, One-and-done | No Comments »

A capsule review

March 17th, 2009 11:16 pm

most of it is such a carbon copy of the book that some of what alan’s saying gets across by accident. it’s kind of like someone with no sense of humour retelling a joke he heard once. some lines are taken out of context and you remember them from the book so you KNOW they’re a good line, you KNOW they made sense and had a purpose once but without that it’s probably just another ‘i gave birth to the 20th century’.

That’s Haley Campbell, daughter of the esteemed Eddie, talking about Watchmen. I still haven’t seen Watchmen, but oddly enough, what she says there is almost exactly my review of Coraline.

Posted in Reviews | No Comments »

Ouch, my aesthetic sensibilities!

March 17th, 2009 11:09 pm

Courtesy of Andrew Wheeler, I bring you my new choice for dramatic readings, narrowly edging out me previous preference for reading passages from the Book Of Revelations with a hammy Southern Baptist preacher delivery. I’m not sure yet what voice to use to give the text the presentation it deserves.

The text follows after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Books, One-and-done | 4 Comments »

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