SF/F Links: February Roundup Part One
Lots and lots of links heading your way. This has been a busy last couple weeks for sure. I’ve had essays up the you know where and a midterm, which I pray that I did good on. In any case, I’ve found lots of interesting things to share and that’s exactly what intend to do: share. So enjoy! First and most important, however, is that there are actually some writers in serious need of financial assistance. Now, I’m broke due to school, but I do understand that writers simply don’t make a lot of money in the first place and sometimes bad things happen they can’t account for. You can find all the information about the following two writers and their predicament, plus how you can help (i.e. where to send money to), at this link to Bibliophile Stalker.James Reasoner recently lost his house and EVERYTHING due to a wild fire caused by some idiot tossing a cigarette out a car window. They’ve lost everything and need everything.Also Caitlin R. Kiernan, another writer, has come into financial difficulties over a medical condition, something I imagine we all have gone through.Click the link above and please please please give a dollar or ten or twenty or more. Anything you can for these folks. It’s tragic and unfortunate that writers get paid so very very little, but it’s true. Thanks on that. Okay, to usual links: Universe Today: Astrospies…possibly the coolest documentary show that isn’t about aliens or secret Star Wars projects to ever be made and I’m praying I get the chance to see it! Yes, the name says it all. New thinking from U of Hawaii challenges the theory that galaxies all formed slowly. What if they formed fast and ended up like ours? How to find worm holes…and other stuff about wormholes. io9: Probably already mentioned this, but oh well. Scientists have found a gas giant around another star that contains organic compounds (i.e. the building blocks of life). Holland isn’t scared of global warming. Why? Well, if the sea levels rise they’re building the whole country so it can float, or so they say. The first child to have THREE genetic parents! That’s right, THREE! A nanotube radio. Self explanatory. Climb like a gecko with adhesive microfiber gloves! Apparently pollution is mutating my little swimmers faster than I once thought, which might mean I don’t have to have kids after all…just kidding, sweety. The U.S. Navy has an awesome electromagnetic rail gun. Yes, it’s cool. I want one. One of Roger Zelazny’s novels that was never brought to print is actually being published, well after his death of course. Good news indeed. Morgellons. I don’t know what it is, and neither do most people, but if it’s a real disease then it’s one of the most bizarre diseases ever…wires growing out of your skin…weird. Stemagen’s chief executive is the first person to see his clone grow into a viable embryo. I thought this was illegal in most places, but guess not. Steven Colbert talks to David Levy. Sex with robots…yeah, weird, but remotely interesting. This is fascinating: Why reality fatigue has made SF more interesting. The U.S. needs a space race with China, and I agree! NASA apparently is teaming up with City of Hope (cancer research) to develop low-invasive nano-surgery. I’m in, sounds like a great idea! A fun, yet crazy Japanese inventor says he can save the world in three ways! As io9 says, it sounds nuts but it might be true considering who this is coming from. From SF Signal: Emil Jung talks about the value of SF and F. The first documented case of pest resistance to biotech cotton! Or, in translation, EVOLUTION! Eat that Creationists! 10 Sci-Fi Techs We Could Build If They Weren’t So Damn Expensive! This is a really cool list by the way. Cockroaches get stronger in space by the way…which lends some interesting ideas about insects… A quote that gives the only reason why you should never buy from Apple again. Steve Jobs = Moron. How popular does Google say SF is? Check this post out and find out. It’s really close to overtaking God. Go SF! Where SF gets serious! Stuff from the books and TV we love that could actually come true in the near future! Why giant mecha robots are stupid! I don’t agree. I do agree with this: Why giant mecha robots are totally awesome! Futurismic: The Large Hadron Collider (i.e. a machine that collides particles together…which is fun and dangerous at the same time) may actually introduce us to other dimensions. We’re on our way to contact lenses that can display digital data in your vision. Videos from a science teacher on Global Warming. The main video has a very smart premise to it: it doesn’t matter whether it’s real or not, we have to make a decision now because the risks of it being true are worse than taking action and it being false. I can agree on that, however I still think global warming is a load of crap, at least as far as human involvement is concerned. You tell me how you’re going to stop volcanoes from ruining the atmosphere and we’ll talk. Apparently the French have come up with a most interesting flying hotel. Apparently flames work in strange ways in space. Check out this little thing about it from NASA. Here are a bunch of really gorgeous images of galaxies and nebulae (plus a couple pictures about that sex Hubble Telescope). They’re truly stunning. I love space. Rules For Writing A Fantasy Novel. Self explanatory. 100 Phenomena is a site that is predicting future data and keeping track of things happening in real life (including things that are going to happen, which are put into the data for the future). They’re interesting predictions. There is a Church of Spock by the way. For those that are obsessed with Japanese women, or just weird geek fantasies, here is a
Your Limbs Are Belong to Us: SF’s Future
Long long ago in a place somewhat similar to today, with technology not quite like it is now, but with minds exploring the unimaginable bounds of space, human intelligence, and technology itself, someone came up with the brilliant idea of ‘robotic’ prosthetic limbs. Probably the iconic example is Luke Skywalker, who loses his hand in a brilliantly dark and emotionally complex scene with his would-be father slash evil right hand of the Emperor. We remember the end of Empire Strikes Back as Lando Calrissian and Chewie prepare to shoot off into a galactic spacescape to save Han Solo that our hero Luke Skywalker has been given a new hand filled with mechanical joints and gizmos and feeling. Literally a replacement for his former hand that is just about as good as the last, or maybe better.Well that ‘future’ is becoming a reality. Futurismic brought an interesting article to me through their RSS feed that talks about a prosthetic limb that can sense touch and heat. Nothing there about pain, obviously, and I can’t imagine you’d want to give such a device painful sensations, but this is a wonderful example of how science fiction has shaped our society. Forty years ago people wouldn’t have thought we’d be building fake hands that can move and feel. They also didn’t think we’d ever really figure out how to make robotic machines function via the thought of a human, something which we’re actually working on and slowly developing. This trend, which I’ve brought up numerous times, is exactly why SF needs to be paid attention to. It isn’t a genre of a bunch of idiots running around coming up with futures that are completely realistic, though I imagine that some are. If we looked to writers like Robert J. Sawyer we can see now, just as it was way back when, that SF writers are handling real world issues and presenting solutions and ideas to the world. Why are we ignoring them? Perhaps it has to do with science.L. E. Modesitt, Jr. recently tackled the concern over scientific study here. The post suggested the recent destruction of the education system, an idea that Modesitt considers to be a systematic removal of the science-born minds of our world. Whether it’s true that our current administration is actually trying to dumb us up and make us susceptible to governmental rule due to our ignorance is for another argument, but the point still stands that the U.S. has a lot to answer for in regards to its obvious reduction in innovation and scientific interest. Modesitt hits the nail on the head by bringing up the recent fund-cut in Physics by the government: Now… some may claim that might be going a bit too far, but, in support of the Bush war budget, the latest Congressional appropriations take huge cuts out of fundamental research in physics, so much so that Fermilab in Illinois and Stanford’s Linear Accelerator Center together will lay off more than 300 scientists and employees, essentially closing for all practical purposes. Why? Supposedly because the something like $95-$100 million required is needed more to fund the war than for physics research.Pardon me, but I don’t see cuts in $200 million bridges to nowhere, and the cuts in federal funds for physics research amount to tenths of a percent of the annual costs of waging the war in Iraq. Such research cuts won’t add anything meaningful to the war funding, but they will cripple American physics research for years, if not longer. Modesitt sees a trend in society that we should be incredibly concerned about. Budget cuts for education and science are huge concerns not only for those intending to move into the science world–a field that is absolutely a necessity if this country intends to do anything of considerable value in the next few decades–but also for SF writers like Modesitt. We have seen a reduction of scientific thought and scientific-minded people in the U.S. and a rise of, shall we say radical religious politics. Religion is on the rise and science is being shut out. Why? One would have to assume there is some logic here, but there isn’t any. Science is, plain and simple, absolute, in the same sense that God is absolute, in its mission to learn and enhance human knowledge. That is what science does, and without science our world would not exist. Science gave us the car, the computer, the airplane, etc. What lies below all that are SF writers, who came up with these amazing creations that were once thought to be a load of bologna.My concerns, however, are not necessarily that SF is going to die of its own accord, but that it will die, at least in the U.S., due to a failing system of thought (I use ‘will’ loosely here, because it’s not necessarily going to die for certain, but if things don’t change it very well could). Religion is not better than science, and neither is science better than religion. Both have tremendous benefits, when used correctly. Science, however, is the practical solution to an advancing society, or world for that matter. Likewise, science fiction greatly depends on an environment where scientific thought is open and able to grow. If airplanes had never been invented, would SF have ever been more than pulp fiction? What if computers, space ships, etc. had never seen the light of day? SF would have simply been another ‘fantasy’ genre, with no basis in reality. We’re fortunate to have seen these creations come into existence, and fortunate to see things like prosthetic arms that can feel be brought to life. Without scientific advancement where will SF writers have to go?Certainly writers like Tobias S. Buckell will still be writing great stories, but he writes a specific ‘type’ of SF story. Tobias is not what I would call your ‘hard SF’ writer, though his stories do hinge on realistic ideas of science, to some extent. His stories are sort of
Hubble and the Space Program
I was reading this article at Universe Today and felt it necessary to comment on the state of the space program in this country. I have concerns, you see, and they are legit concerns. Or so I think.The article talks about the repairs that will be done on Hubble in a way that sounds as if the astronauts have better things to do. I’ll admit that they probably do, but it’s also not Hubble’s fault that they have other crap to do. Needless to say, Hubble is getting an upgrade and will be 90 times more sensitive and be capable of picking up over 900 galaxies as its field of vision is being increased. Also, its lifespan is being extended to 2013, with a scheduled decommission date in 2020 (which is part of what I want to discuss). Firstly, I’m glad to hear that they’ll be fixing this amazing satellite. It apparently suffered a power failure in January of last year and is in need of some fixing. Thanks to NASA for fitting it into their schedule.Here is my concern, though. What does this say for our space program when amazing devices like Hubble, which has produced some of the most beautiful images of space objects we’ve ever seen and helped advance our knowledge of the universe in ways unimaginable, if we can’t fix them in a good time (twelve months seems like a really long time) and are willing to attach a rockets to them and drive them into the ocean? I can’t say I fully understand the logic. Hubble isn’t a cheap piece of machinery. They didn’t make it out of soda cans and old TV parts and broken microscopes from the 50s. Hubble is an amazing technological achievement for us. It’s also incredibly valuable. We’ve poured so much money into this thing. It’s not like throwing out an old television. This is like throwing out an entire warehouse stuffed to the brim with 200 inch TVs with gold plating.Why is it that we’re having such a hard time with our space program? Where is the innovation or campaigning? I wonder if NASA or anyone else has considered this option:What if they put a public call out to individuals, organizations, and universities who would be willing to fund Hubble–from the parts to operation to repairs by astronauts? There have to be dozens of universities who would love to get their hands on this fine piece of machinery. If a few hundred universities all over the world sat down and funded a project to maintain Hubble we might see it stay in the sky for decades to come. What is the point in just replacing it? Most people won’t get to use a replacement, so if we could offer Hubble to a wider group of scholarly individuals it would give us an extra eye in the sky. Hubble might not be as powerful as the craft we plan to put in space, but it’s still incredibly useful. We can still learn from it.I simply have a problem with destroying something as important as Hubble, for any reason. At the very least this piece of machinery deserves to be in a museum. At least then we’d show a little respect for something that has dazzled us with amazing images of the stars. Right now, it feels like we’re crapping on a good friend.
SF/F Links: January 2008 Roundup
This is what happens when you have a lot of blogs to watch and a lot of time on your hands to click the stumble button: you find a lot of interesting new articles! So here they are: Wil McCarthy’s Science Wiktion: an experimental collaborative writing project. Essentially he has become busy with a nanotech company and has decided to give up some of his works to anyone wanting to write them. There’s more on the site, but it’s an interesting prospect. James Wharris writes about what SF has to do to survive. “For science fiction to remain vital it must stay above the event horizon or be pulled down into the gravitation hole of fantasy.” An online open-source publishing model for online magazines. Not sure if I linked this already, but check out these amazing steampunk-esque creations! They’re robotic animals and the like. It’s so cool! Did You Know? 2.0: A really interesting video I found that shows you a lot of things you probably didn’t know about the world. Watch it. It’s really cool. The International Space Station of the future! This is one of the coolest videos I’ve seen. Someone decided to make a 3D movie of future modifications to ISS as they develop. Watch it, it’s wicked cool! The Sun. That’s all. The Sun as a Google Video. Cool? Yes, and if you don’t think so you have no respect for that glowing orb of burning gas that makes sure you can live every day. I found this company website called Solar Style. They have some really interesting solar products that you can buy such as conversion kits for your mp3 player or cell phone. An eclipse as shown from space! (Take from Mir). Jupiter has cool eclipses too, such as this one of Io. In October of 2007 the Pentagon apparently supported the idea to put a satellite facility in space to gather solar energy and beam it down. It’s about damn time! My biggest concern is that the NSSO is recommending a 10 year project for a test satellite. My thoughts are if it’s going to take 10 years to get that up, then it’s going to take 30 to get a real program going. Cut it down to 2 years to get a test one up…let’s get a move on people! All Your Base Are Belong To Us! You should know that phrase from this video. Spielberg is doing another WW2 miniseries called The Pacific. This one, it seems, is going to follow the soldiers who fought in, obviously, the Pacific Theater, much like Band of Brothers followed people in the European Theater, specifically the airborne members of Easy Company. I’m stoke, by the way. I love Band of Brothers. Need a definition of science fiction? Here’s a huge list of definitions from authors in the field. Matt Mitchell talks about the differences between SF and F. The top ten science-based movies. It’s a decent list I think. (Courtesy of SF Signal) BMW has said they are going to pull out the stops and create a hydrogen-powered car this year. Maybe it’s not quite there, but I imagine that BMW will have them for sure by 2010. Alternately there is the air car from MDI. 11 Philip K. Dick books that have been turned into movies. I have some new reading and watching to do. (Courtesy of SF Signal) Universe Today has an article suggesting that some stars go through two planet-formation phases. That’s pretty cool when you think about it. Also, apparently that asteroid that was going to hit Mars isn’t going to after all. A really cool image. I’m not sure what it’s of (as in the specifics), but I imagine it’s a supernova or a nebula with massive gas jets. Wil McCarthy talks about the credibility of the AvP movie. The short version is that there isn’t a whole lot of credibility. Futurismic tells us that Neuromancer by William Gibson is to be made into a movie. To be honest, I’m fearful. Read the article and you’ll understand why.What about whether or not space travel is worth it? Is it? I think so, but look at what some other people think.And robots can lie! Yup, read this! They also evolve by the way. Sometimes people have too much time on their hands. Look no further than time wasting than this candy recreation of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields from Lord of the Rings. It’s ridiculous and awesome at the same time. My io9 Roundup: Concept art of a spaceport on Titan. Beautiful work here. Stem Cell research gets another point as a man regrows a jaw bone in his stomach. Geneticists think they may have discovered how to expand our lives by hundreds of years. They’ve (USC) managed to extend the lifespan of yeast bacteria tenfold. Parents who get sick of their kids not concentrating have hope that scientists will be able to turn them autistic temporarily, since they can now do it with mice. McCarthy’s The Road is going to be turned into a film with Viggo Mortensen. Scientists have also created a new method to ‘fix’ men that can be turned on and off via remote, which is good news for people that suddenly change their minds. The Zombie Food Pyramid. Learn it. It’s important. Will Smith has gone crazy just like most of Hollywood and joined the crazy folks known as Scientologists–in some circles they’re seen as criminals against humanity. Needless to say I just lost a lot of respect for him. Ender’s Game is going to become a video game. (Courtesy of SF Signal) Clive Thompson talks about why SF is the last bastion of philosophical writing. (Courtesy of SF Signal) Jeremiah Tolbert brings up this really bizarre conspiracy theory that suggests that a good 300 years of European history was faked. I think the theory is crazy, but it’s interesting nonetheless. What SF gets wrong about human nature! (Courtesy of SF Signal) A
U.S. Space Program is 50
That’s right, our glorious, slowly dying space program is officially 50 years old today. I think it’s cause for some celebration. As such, I’m officially holding a “Yay, our SP is 50” party over Superbowl. Who’s with me? On a side note, here is a New Scientist article on this very subject, though they’re not offering to host a Superbowl party in Van Allen’s favor… (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
Edelman’s Moral Quandaries (Pt. 5)–G.S.A.G.H.R.
The acronym stands for: Getting Serious About Global Human Rights. The United States pays a lot of lip service to the idea of global human rights — and compared to much of the rest of the world, we’re willing to do something about it more of the time — but too often we back down from the ideals of democracy when it suits us. The way we’ve helped Israel shunt aside the results of free, democratic elections in Palestine is shameful, and the way we turn a blind eye to similar human rights abuses in our allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia is equally ludicrous. But compared to much of the rest of the world, we’re light-years ahead. We’ve ditched slavery, worked hard to put all races on an equal footing, and we’re in the long, slow process of recognizing alternative sexual orientations. Until the whole planet works the same way, we’re going to have a hard time moving forward as a species. I have one big problem with this argument: it implies that everyone has to think like us in order for the species to survive, or something similar to it. While he is very right that global human rights are a moral imperitive, a necessity for the advancement of our species, we also have to realize that we all don’t come from the same background. Arabic nations have very different views on the treatment of women and marriage than we do. They don’t adhere to typical Christian morals which are intertwined in our society, even if you’d like to deny it. We are a Christian nation and would still be one even if all the Christians disappeared. Given that, we have to understand that people of differing religious have different views of how things are supposed to be and as such have grown up living in a world where such beliefs are firmly placed. There is very little room in some parts of the world for ‘radical’ change. America and similar nations are flukes. There are more polygamists than there are monogamists, etc. The U.S. isn’t the end-all-be-all for all things societal. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t find workable solutions for human rights. Surely people of other major religions don’t condone the murdering of people? Buddhists can’t think this and, extremism aside, neither can Muslims. I don’t know a lot about many of the various religions (Buddhism isn’t actually a religion, but I used it here anyway), but there has to be a standard in each of them that all of us can agree on. The biggest, and I mean the BIGGEST, thing that has to be dealt with first is the violation of human rights by the U.S. and her allies. We cannot, logically, sit around and tell people they aren’t allowed to do something if we actually do it. This is the same logic we use against people having nuclear weapons and it’s not out of the question for someone to ask “well, if you have them, why can’t we?” The U.S. government cannot commit crimes against humanity, even against criminals. There are rules against it and we have to follow them just like anyone else. The U.K. and any other ally of the U.S. counts here too, though I can’t point out any specific examples. The only thing I agree with President Shrub on is that Palestine and Israel HAVE to work things out and live peacefully. The Israeli’s aren’t going anywhere and neither are the Palestinians, so why are they bothering to fight and subvert one another when neither is going away? Likewise, it is imperative that the Middle East simply accept that Israel exists and will exist for a long time to come, otherwise we can expect to see further injustices committed there. Once we find that middle ground, it’s a matter of increasingly complex politics that have to be navigated cautiously. Nobody is going to pay our current President much attention on the subject of human rights. Who would? Most of the world doesn’t give him much attention in the way he would like. Regardless, it’s delicate. The second we start telling people what to do they’ll clam up and shut us off. In some cases we may be met with violence. The U.N., the global failure, won’t do anything either unless someone grows some balls and starts taking action. How many nations have violated the rules on human rights that are members? Dozens? Tens of dozens? I don’t know. I know at least ten. Why aren’t such nations having economic sanctions placed on them? Why aren’t they enforcing the rules? Global human rights, essentially, starts at home, must move on to global organizations, and then fed through every avenue possibly to outlying nations. If we can manage that, then we can expect that there might be different treatment of people, or peoples, in the world. The problem is WILL we do it? I don’t know. I’d like to think that enough of us care to at least stomp our feet down and say “enough is enough” and stop trading with nations that hurt their own people, but history has shown that that doesn’t always work out. As Edelman said, we are allied with nations that commit the very crimes we’ve sworn not to uphold. The U.S. has come a long way, but she’s still got a long way to go. It’s up to the U.S. government and the U.S. people to act out the changes necessary to begin by fixing human rights at home. Perhaps one day it’ll happen. Perhaps.