This week I had cause to travel to a nearby city for business, responding to a query I’d received about my conservation services. A small private educational institution had recently acquired a large collection of books of historical interest, and they wanted me to take a look at the collection and give them some kind of estimate on what the costs might involve. This is a fairly typical request, and I’m used to discussing these matters with the appropriate staff and administrators.
However, when I got to the appointed meeting, it quickly became clear that in the mind of the administrators, “conservation care” meant exactly one thing: rebinding all the books to look new. To make the collection all nice and pretty, like one of those fake bookshelf sets in some office or as a movie prop.
Huh? Why on earth would someone want to take books ranging back to about 1500, and turn them into this kind of visual wallpaper? I mean, this sort of thing was done by rich collectors who just wanted to show off their impressive personal libraries in the 17th and 18th centuries, without care for what the books really contained. Why would a learning institution want to do such a thing?
Because, as the Vice President for Institutional Development told me, it’d be easier to get big-money donors to contribute to something that would have a strong visual impact like that. The protection and care – even the USE – of the books themselves was entirely a secondary consideration. In fact, the sort of rebinding they were wanting, if done poorly or with machine efficiency, would damage the bindings of the books and make them less usable. But that wasn’t what was important. The image of all those books in fancy cases was what was important. This, at an accredited school offering advanced graduate degrees.
They hadn’t considered – weren’t even aware that it was an option – the proper care of the books with an eye towards preserving their unique historical value as artifacts reflecting the time they were written and published, or the way those artifacts carried with them a record of their use and care over the centuries. They simply knew that the books were old, and could be just rebound to make them look “more impressive”, and to use that to leverage money out of donors. This is all about image in their minds…the image presented to get donors. Since most people don’t really give a shit about books (sad, but true), how they look on a bookshelf is more important than either functionality or even content.
So I talked with them for some length, opened up the whole new realm for them of actual conservation care. I have three bindings to work on to show them what I mean, and how it would save the historical character of the books. The chief librarian was all for my approach (no surprise there) and was relieved that it was the position I took. And I can get a couple of authorities on curatorial care of Special Collections to back me up, plus plenty of online sources. But I am somewhat skeptical that the necessary comprehension will sink in.
Still, I’ll make a good faith effort to convince them, and save their collection from the horrors of just being turned into a photo prop. We’ll see. I hate to see a real collection of books ruined.
And I hate to think what this says about the larger values of our society.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to Daily Kos.)
Filed under: BoingBoing, Buzz Aldrin, Cory Doctorow, General Musings, Heinlein, movies, NASA, Science Fiction, Space, Uncategorized
Via BoingBoing, info about a Heinlein Centennial celebration to be held in my neck of the woods 7/7/07:
July 7, 2007 – 07/07/07! – will be the birth centennial of American author, futurist, philosopher and spaceflight advocate Robert A. Heinlein. The science fiction Grandmaster’s Centennial year will be marked with a grand event on the weekend of July 6, 7 and 8 in his home town of Kansas City, Missouri.
The clock is ticking down, and only weeks remain before this exceptional event. The time is now now NOW! to make your plans to join us for this huge, once in a lifetime gathering, remembrance and birthday celebration. Whether you’re a science fiction fan, a student of Heinlein’s work and legacy or involved with the growing world of commercial spaceflight… This is where you’ll want to be that weekend. Don’t miss out!
Hmm…KC is only about 2 hours away from me…may need to see what’s going on that weekend…could be a chance to do a little networking, meet some people (the list of participants includes quite a number of interesting people, from Buzz Aldrin to moviemakers to SF luminaries…)
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Flu, General Musings, Pandemic, Plague, Predictions, Science Fiction, Society
We, as a species, have already experienced pandemics countless times. And we have seen pandemics alter or almost wipe out entire advanced civilizations many times in recorded history. There’s the impact of the Black Death in Europe during the 14th century, which killed off about one-third of the population and arguably lead to the destruction of the feudal system. And the collapse of native American culture due to smallpox being introduced to a vulnerable population. And to a greatly lesser extent, but closer to our own society, is the Spanish Flu of 1918, which I used as a starting point for considering the potential of the fire-flu in Communion of Dreams.
Via today’s Rude Pundit, comes word of the advent of our old friend, the plague – this time occuring in squirrels and monkeys in Denver:
The point here is not that the plague is “back” or any such shit. We know that it never goes away in America, especially out on the flea-ridden varmints of the West. But there’s a reason that Spanky’s story is getting more play than the fact that New Mexico had its first plague case this year, a man who got it from, of course, a flea bite. It’s because as long as the plague stays rural, it’s distant, it’s not a cause of concern to the majority of us who stay esconced in our cities. But if Denver’s puss-squirting squirrels are dropping like flies and killing the zoo monkeys, well, shit, all of a sudden the plague is very fuckin’ real. And Colorado’s gotta do something about it before some white child gets it.
I mention this for several reasons. One, I just like the Rude Pundit’s blog. Two, he’s right about the plague never really going away – it is endemic among several animal populations, which function as a disease reservior (and a great place for mutations to occur). Three, he highlights the fundamental problem: we ignore the threat until it suddenly shows up on our doorstep.
And then it is potentially too late. Yeah, modern antibiotics can treat most forms of the plague known. But all it takes is one nasty mutation, and we may well be left defenseless against this old enemy. In fact, I considered using the Bubonic Plague just that way, rather than going with the “fire-flu”. But even in a worst case scenario, plague would still likely respond to broad-spectrum antibiotics. I decided for my book to go with something viral, since modern medicine has many fewer tools to cope with such a threat.
Besides, in the event of a pandemic such as I stipulate for Communion‘s history, we will undoubtably see the re-emergence of many different secondary epidemics, as the infrastructure of our highly interdependent society grinds to a halt. Charming thought, eh?
Jim Downey
Filed under: Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, BoingBoing, Expert systems, General Musings, Government, Heinlein, Predictions, Science Fiction, Society, tech
The tech of Communion of Dreams is based on a seamless connectivity of almost all electronic components – it is what enables the AI/expert systems such as Seth to move freely through the world on behalf of their clients, augmenting reality in such a way as to allow for much deeper insight and understanding of the world. I don’t say it explicitly in the book, but in part this level of connectivity is what allows for the actual development of true artificial intelligence (an homage to Heinlein’sThe Moon is a Harsh Mistress).
Via BoingBoing comes news that Tim Wu has an excellent piece up about the forthcoming auction of wireless spectrum, and how it presents the opportunity to encourage the kind of innovation necessary for the world of Communion to become possible. Wu, a leader in the promotion of net neutrality and broadband tech, understands that establishing common standards and then allowing inventors to attach their gadgets to wireless networks will be the critical infrastructure of the future. An excerpt:
The right to attach is a simple concept, and it has worked powerfully in other markets. For example, in the wired telephone world Carterfone rules are what made it possible to market answering machines, fax machines and the modems that sparked the Internet revolution.
Attachment rights can break open markets that might otherwise be controlled by dominant gatekeepers. Longshot companies like Ebay or YouTube might never have been born had they first needed the approval of a risk-averse company like AT&T. If you’ve invented a new toaster, you don’t have to get approval from the electric company. Consumers decide how good your product is, not some gatekeeper.
It’s an excellent position paper, all the better for being brief and to the point. Read it, share it.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Augmented Reality, General Musings, Government, Guns, Iraq, movies, NPR, Predictions, Press, RFID, Science Fiction, Society, tech, Writing stuff
A story this morning on Weekend Edition – Saturday about the military’s efforts to recover lost or captured soldiers in Iraq brought up the topic of “tagging” our people with some kind of tracking device. Retired Marine Lt. Col. Gary Anderson was somewhat critical of the current Pentagon leadership that such an application of technology hadn’t been put into more widespread use yet.
His reaction is understandable. The idea of tracking devices of one sort or another has been extremely popular in fiction (everything from spy novels to SF) for decades, and we now have a widespread tech which could be fairly easily adapted for such use: Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID for short. Combine this with the already extant use of battlefield electronics, it should be possible to increase the range of such passive devices without sacrificing size and concealability, allowing for hiding such tags in clothing or even within the body of the soldier. Certainly, this would seem to fit with the current mindset of the military, and would fill the gap until current military tech evolves to have an ‘information-integrated force’ such as I stipulate for Communion.
[Mild spoiler alert.]
In Communion, I apply the tech of the period to have the soldiers ‘wired’ with an array of information-sharing devices, analogous to the type of integrated ‘cyberware’ used by the general population. For military applications, though, the tech is more robust, a little more cutting edge, a bit further advanced in application, to the point of even having “smart guns” which would only function for those using the correct encryption key. This does play a minor part in the plot development at several junctures, and assumes that at all times anyone can be tracked fairly easily.
Anyway, the idea of tagging our people in that kind of war environement seems to be a no-brainer to me. Yeah, there are privacy issues to be concerned with for the use of such tagging in civilian life, but that is much less an issue for someone in the military. I expect we’ll see it implemented across the board in the near future…the first step into my predictions about in-body cyberware.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Diane Rehm, Flu, General Musings, Genetic Testing, Pandemic, Predictions, Reproduction, Science Fiction, Society, tech, Writing stuff
There was a very interesting segment on the Diane Rehm show this morning about how reproductive science has advanced considerably in the last few decades, and the impact that is having on both individuals and society. In the course of the discussion, the participants touched on a number of issues both of interest to me personally, and pertaining to Communion of Dreams.
In this post in March, I discussed the genetic disease which runs in my family, and how that helped inform my decision not to have children. At the time I entered the normal child-rearing years, the appropriate testing wasn’t available. Now it is. And while I could still make the decision to have children, my wife and I are content without those additional responsibilities.
Anyway, in the course of the discussion on Diane Rehm’s show, there was mention of the fact that couples seeking IVF treatment have the option to perform genetic testing on the individual embryos produced by the procedure, and could then select which embryos to have implanted with the hope that they would quicken and grow. Huxley’s Brave New World is potentially here with this level of scrutiny and selection.
So, what about Communion? In it, I stipulate a history of a pandemic influenza, which kills hundreds of millions, and leaves most of the surviving population sterile. But here I left off from my usual attention to scientific detail, in not specifying exactly what the mechanism in effect was. Because, knowing full well the potential that modern medical science has to offer, I thought it might be a simple answer to just have non-sterile couples producing lots of viable embryos using current IVF tech, and then have those embryos implanted in host mothers, thereby circumventing the threat of human extinction. Like the parents who can now pick and choose which embryo has the greatest potential for survival, I made my own selection of what plot mechanisms were most viable. (Please note, I am not trying to equate the two!)
This is something that all writers have to do: make decisions on what to include, what to exclude. Science fiction writers have to do more of it, since in theory you can decided to invent just about any new technology or science to suit your purpose. But for me, I try to establish a given technological level, and see what makes sense within those constraints. According to most who have read the book and responded to me (either in person or in comments here), I did a pretty fair job in resolving most of the issues. But I know that in this particular case, I pulled a little sleight of hand, and my own sense of honesty pushes me to acknowledge it.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Expert systems, General Musings, Predictions, Science Fiction, Society, tech, Writing stuff
Sheesh.
So, I was reading one of my fav online comics today (Dinosaur Comics), and came across a term I wasn’t familiar with, even through I describe it and use it extensively in Communion of Dreams. The term? Augmented Reality.
I posit that the use of expert systems and the integration of computing applications will become so widespread by the time of the novel (2052) that there will be a fairly seemless overlay of additional information on everyday reality for anyone who wants it. In fact, this plays a rather important role in the plot development, and ties in with my vision of what will necessarily delineate the divergent tracks between human intelligence and true Artificial Intelligence (see yesterday’s post).
But I didn’t know that it had a common term. *sigh* I am so out of it sometimes…
Jim Downey
Filed under: Artificial Intelligence, General Musings, movies, NYT, Philip K. Dick, Predictions, Press, Science Fiction, Society, Writing stuff
There’s a pretty good article about Philip K. Dick in yesterday’s New York Times. Odd man. Fine author. Source of a lot of my musings on the subjects of society, artificial intelligence, the human condition – not things I would necessarily point to as being inspirational, but definitely a big part of the mix of attitudes I developed from a premature exposure to lots of science fiction as a kid. As an adult, I came to appreciate more his writing for what it was – inspired, drug-fueled, more than a little scary around the edges.
And as a writer I completely understand his desire for more ‘legitimacy’ – something to which many of us who work in the nebulous genre of SF share, I think. From the NYT piece:
So it’s hard to know what Mr. Dick, who died in 1982 at the age of 53, would have made of the fact that this month he has arrived at the pinnacle of literary respectability. Four of his novels from the 1960s — “The Man in the High Castle,” “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch,” “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and “Ubik” — are being reissued by the Library of America in that now-classic Hall of Fame format: full cloth binding, tasseled bookmark, acid-free, Bible-thin paper. He might be pleased, or he might demand to know why his 40-odd other books weren’t so honored.
Take a moment, read the article. And if you haven’t had a chance to do so, dive into some of Dick’s work. It may now be gaining some ‘respectability’, but that’s no reason to avoid it.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Apollo program, General Musings, NASA, Press, Space, Walter Shirra, Writing stuff
I don’t remember much of my childhood. The sudden deaths of my parents, just 18 months apart when I was on the verge of adolescence, was such a shock that most of my childhood was just lost to me.
But I remember the space race. I remember watching the early manned launches. And I remember Walter Shirra, admittedly more for his time working with Walter Cronkite commenting on the news during launches late in the 60s than as an astronaut himself.
Rest in Peace, Mr. Shirra. And thank you for your bravery and intelligence.
Jim Downey
Filed under: BoingBoing, Cory Doctorow, General Musings, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
Just a quick note to mention that sometime today we’ll pass the 2,500 download mark of Communion of Dreams. Huzzah! Not too bad, given that it has been available for little more than three months.
And as Mike Keers notes in this post, that may well underestimate the actual number of people who have read the book. Of course, not everyone who downloaded the thing necessarily read it, so who knows. Still, the success of a book is counted in terms of sales, so…
Anyway, thanks to all who have helped to make this endeavour a modest success, and particular thanks to SF author Cory Doctorow, who has by his example shown me that web-publishing is a workable strategy. Yes, I do want to find an agent and conventionally publish the thing, but in many regards it is more important that I have the book out there, being read and enjoyed. And with a little luck, once I do find a publisher, those who read it online will want to have their own hardcopy edition. We’ll see.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 