Interesting:
From the FRIDA project page:
Today, the development is at a stage where several prototypes have left the research lab and are being tested in pilot applications, with more work required to reach a fully agile assembly scenario.
This is more of an economic development than it is the advent of our New Robotic Overlords. Having such a robot on a human scale which is fairly modular means that it can be plugged into existing factories and systems with minimal additional investment. Depending on the cost of these things once they’re ready for sale, they could wind up supplanting human labor – likely first in environments where it is too dangerous/costly for humans to work, then increasingly in general repetitive labor.
The Utopian science fiction writers foresaw a society where robotic workers freed humans for a life of ease – allow people to do creative work at their leisure. Cynical bastard that I am, I always figured that such a life of ease would mostly be reserved for the people who *owned* the robotic workers, with everyone else struggling to get by in a society which no longer really needed human labor. Current economic trends have tended to bear this out.
But I suppose we’ll see what the future actually holds.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, Carl Sagan, Nuclear weapons, Science, Science Fiction, Survival, Violence, YouTube
My wife and I decided to revisit the Cosmos series recently. It holds up surprisingly well for a pop-science program from 30 years ago.
Tonight’s episode was the finale. And I was struck by what it was like back then, to contemplate the possibility of nuclear war. I think a lot of people today who weren’t aware during that time have difficulty in understanding just how palpable that threat was. Here’s a good bit from the episode that explains it better than I could:
Is it any wonder that a post-apocalyptic world was the setting for so much science fiction generated during that time? Any wonder at all?
We may or may not have threaded the needle and survived the time of peak technological vulnerability. Not only are there other threats out there to our long term survival, but even the threat of nuclear war is not passed – not hardly. I still fully expect that there will be another war in which nuclear weapons will be a factor, and such use could easily spin out of control and engulf the entire planet.
But the hair trigger we lived with for some 30 years is no more. Things certainly are not perfect now, but they *are* better. We did indeed decide to survive, at least through that time. And that was an important step.
Jim Downey
Filed under: ISS, Music, NASA, Predictions, Religion, Science Fiction, Space, Violence, YouTube
This is from the end of Chapter Three, set on a space station in Earth orbit:
There was a knot of perhaps 15 people, all facing one another around a bunch of tables shoved together. They finished their song, and clapping was heard throughout the atrium.
Jon smiled at Gates, explained. “Spacers. Crew off those two ships docked outside. Choral music has become something of a tradition the last few years, and each ship usually can field a fairly good ensemble of at least a half-dozen singers.”
“Huh. I had no idea.”
Another song started, this time with more voices. “C’mon, let’s go on down there.”
Why do I post this? Because of this wonderful clip:
Not choral music, but flute as an accompaniment to a song. The provenance of her flutes is impressive in itself. But the fact that we’re seeing a highly-trained, wonderfully intelligent person in orbit doing this just really makes my day . . . and re-affirms my faith in humanity overall.
It is sometimes easy to be cynical and depressed at the things we do.
This makes up for it.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, NPR, Predictions, Science Fiction, Space, Titan, UFO
Lights in the sky. Strange lights. Lights that don’t move . . . right.
Must be aliens, stopping off for a visit, right?
Highbeams Of The Gods: Do UFOs Need Headlights?
Over at the Two-Way a UFO sighting over Colorado has been generating discussion and heat. In looking over the comments a question has come up which really strikes at the heart of the UFO issue. Someone astutely asked something along the lines of “Why do UFOs need headlights?”
Yeah. Good point. Are the aliens scared of running into a deer?
Exactly.
Pretty much the most crucial plot point in Communion of Dreams is that the alien artifact discovered on Titan is using some kind of stealth technology. (I’m not giving anything away by saying this, for those who haven’t yet read the book.) How and more importantly why this is the case is what drives the story.
I agree with the author of the blog post cited: “…any civilization with technology capable of spanning light-years ought to be able to hide themselves well enough to avoid detection from hairy apes with jet-planes like us.”
Bingo.
And that’s all I’ll say, or I will give away some spoilers for those who haven’t yet read the book. (And why haven’t you?? C’mon – it’s brilliant!)
Jim Downey
Filed under: Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Babylon 5, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, tech, Wall Street Journal
A good friend sent me a review in the WSJ about Physics of the Future. Here’s a good excerpt from the review:
That is the core message of Michio Kaku’s “Physics of the Future.” Despite its title, the book is not so much about physics as it is about gadgets and technology, described by Mr. Kaku—professor, blogger and television host—on a wide-ranging tour of what to expect from technological progress over the next century or so.
Much of the terrain Mr. Kaku surveys will be familiar to futurists, but less technically oriented readers are likely to find it fascinating—and related with commendable clarity. The changes that Mr. Kaku expects range from the readily foreseeable to the considerably more esoteric.
Augmented reality—in which useful data overlay what we see with our eyes—already exists in rudimentary form on smartphones, but Mr. Kaku predicts a time, only a decade or two away, when a much denser information stream will be fed directly to our retinas by contact lenses or optical implants. Want to fix a car, perform emergency surgery, or prepare a gourmet meal? The app will tell you what to do—and guide your work. Have trouble learning a foreign language? Expect a useful universal translator to do the work for you. And the ability to connect computers directly to human nervous systems will drastically improve the lives of those who are paralyzed, blind or deaf—as it is already beginning to do. Eventually, we may know the sort of virtual worlds illustrated in science-fiction novels like Greg Egan’s “Permutation City.”
Hmm . . . sound familiar? This is exactly the sort of tech I stipulate as being pretty mature (completely developed and integrated into everyday use) in Communion of Dreams.
Fun. I may have to get a copy of that book.
Jim Downey
(Thanks to ML for the link!)
Filed under: Emergency, Failure, Isaac Asimov, Politics, Predictions, Science Fiction, Society
There’s a sign in the desert that lies to the west
Where you can’t tell the night from the sunrise
And not all the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Have prevented the fall of the unwise*
Almost prophetic, isn’t it?
The homepage for Communion of Dreams has the following description:
The world I have envisioned in this book is recognizable, in the same way that the 1950’s are recognizable, but with a comparable amount of unpredictable change as between that era and the present. Most authors will avoid writing about the near-term future, because it is easy for a work to become dated. I’m not that smart.
Unpredictable change. Rapid change. Protests in Egypt started just a month ago. Protests in Libya started just a week ago. Then there’s Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia. Even China has started to get nervous about controlling discussion of events around the Mediterranean.
If we had Asimov’s psychohistory, perhaps we would have been able to foresee this shift. But even then, I have my doubts. It is one thing to say “people want freedom” and another to not be surprised by what is happening. You can call the internet, Twitter, and mobile phones transformational technologies all you want, but that doesn’t mean you understand *how* the changes they augment will actually play out.
History is full of odd twists and small turns which topple rulers and determine the outcome of wars. Yes, certain forces can come together to create the right environment – to supersaturate the solution, as it were – but then almost any kind of catalyst can precipitate a radical change, and which kind of catalyst makes a difference. I think this is what we are seeing with the sweeping turmoil in the Middle East and Mediterranean – a phase change, as it were, from one reality to another.
This isn’t the first such phase change I have seen. The collapse of the Soviet Union was another. I grew up thinking that it was an implacable enemy, a monolith which would last forever if it didn’t kill us all first. When I traveled behind the Iron Curtain in 1974 I would never have been able to predict that 15 years later the whole thing would just tumble into dust. But then again, no one else did, either.
And that’s the thing. As I work now on the prequel to Communion of Dreams, set just a year in the future (but not our future – a related one near at hand) it is easy to envision other kinds of radical change which would come to create the world of my novel . . . and perhaps our own.
(2/26/11) An addendum: for a further, and much more insightful – not to mention more informed – discussion of the changes in the Middle East, read this article.
Jim Downey
*Alan Parsons, Turn of a Friendly Card.
Filed under: Brave New World, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, tech
Two more technological news items that bring us closer to the cybertech from Communion of Dreams. The first is a millimeter-scale computer designed for implantation in an eye to monitor for glaucoma:
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—A prototype implantable eye pressure monitor for glaucoma patients is believed to contain the first complete millimeter-scale computing system.
The second is a big step forward in brain-activated control of mechanisms thanks to an implanted grid of electrodes:
The method is called electrocorticography, which involves placing a thin plastic pad full of electrodes on the brain’s surface to measure its electrical activity. And it holds promise as being more accurate and telling than other efforts to understand the brain.
* * *
The goal behind decoding the brain’s signals is to allow individuals to control machines with their minds alone. The science holds tremendous potential for people with limb loss, spinal cord injuries and neuromuscular disorders to move and communicate.
As I think I’ve mentioned before, coming up with the tech of 2052 was mostly a challenge because I had to figure out what would slow things down enough that whatever I said sounded plausible.
Jim Downey
(Hat tip to my sis for the second link.)
Good lord, this is funnier than hell, and very well done:
I particularly like the fangs.
Jim Downey
Via TR.
Filed under: Government, movies, Nuclear weapons, Paleo-Future, Predictions, Science Fiction, Terrorism, YouTube
About a year before I was born, the Strategic Air Command had a little movie made for training purposes. Here’s a nice clip from it:
And here’s a bit explaining the story behind the movie:
Washington, D.C., February 19, 2011 – “The Power of Decision” may be the first (and perhaps the only) U.S. government film depicting the Cold War nightmare of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear conflict. The U.S. Air Force produced it during 1956-1957 at the request of the Strategic Air Command. Unseen for years and made public for the first time by the National Security Archive, the film depicts the U.S. Air Force’s implementation of war plan “Quick Strike” in response to a Soviet surprise attack against the United States and European and East Asian allies. By the end of the film, after the Air Force launches a massive bomber-missile “double-punch,” millions of Americans, Russians, Europeans, and Japanese are dead.
60 million American casualties, actually, when all was said and done. And that was the “winning” scenario.
Is it any wonder that much of the popular culture (and the science fiction) of the time was concerned with dystopian futures, frequently involving apocalyptic nuclear war? It truly was a form of MADness.
And we came a lot closer to that actually happening on several occasions that most people realize. I’m not going to bother to dig up all the references, but in addition to the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Yom Kippur War there were multiple instances of false alerts due to mechanical and communications failures which came to light following the end of the Cold War.
Is it any wonder that I have a hard time getting too worked up about the threat of ‘terrorism’? When you grew up expecting a nuclear holocaust, the prospect of random bombings doesn’t seem that big a deal.
Jim Downey
since I first posted about Iron Sky, but it seems like they’re continuing to make progress. From their website two weeks ago:
The news just arrived from Downunder: principal photography finished, all filmed material is in the can (or on portable hard drives in this case), and everyone is washing away the Australian dust with a hefty soaking of assorted beverages!
Additional info indicates that they have three months or more of editing and special effects, and I’m sure that there will be delays along the way – but I’m impressed that they’ve come this far.
Just for giggles, here’s the second teaser which was out a while ago (but which I had managed to miss):
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 