Filed under: Feedback, General Musings, Predictions, Science Fiction, tech, Writing stuff
People are sometimes surprised that I tend to be a late-adopter of most technological gadgets. I suppose that since I envision where tech is likely to go, as seen in Communion, they figure that I must be a real geek, with all the latest toys.
Nope. I didn’t get a cell phone until about a year and a half ago. My computer is five years old. I don’t own a big screen/plasma/HD tv. And just this morning my first MP3 player arrived, a itty-bitty thing the size of my thumb but a bit longer (one of these). A big part of the reason for my late-adopting strategy is that I want to let a technology mature a bit, so the bugs are worked out and the price drops.
Because the price always drops. I first learned that lesson the hard way when I was just a kid, in the early 70’s. I bought one of the first hand-held calculators, a massive thing about the size of decently thick paperback book that had like six functions. I thought it was way cool. Spent some obscene amount of money on it – like what you’d pay for a decent little laptop these days, adjusted for inflation. Of course, within six months, the things were being sold at a huge discount, newer models were out and were both smaller and many times more powerful, et cetera. It was the very beginning of the digital revolution.
Same thing happened with my first personal computer, an IBM clone I got during grad school in the mid 80’s that didn’t have a hard drive (just ran off a pair of floppies), had a single color monitor and dot-matrix printer, and cost me like one-third what I spent on a new car about the same time. And this was even a couple of years after the first ‘personal computers’ had been on the market. Needless to say, the quality of PCs continued to rise dramatically, just as the price continued to plunge, and within a year that computer was more or less obsolete (though I used it for about five years…)
So, I learned to be a bit patient in regards to tech. Like with my new little Walkman. The review I cited above was six months ago, when the things were going for about $200. I just got mine off of Woot for $50. Sure, it’s not as nice as the latest ones, but it will suit my purposes just fine. Once I figure out how it works, of course…
Jim Downey
Filed under: General Musings, Predictions, Quantum mechanics, Science Fiction, Scientific American, Stephen Hawking, tech, Writing stuff
Scientific American has a great piece about making a quantum eraser at home, with complete explanations of the science behind the experiment. Even if you don’t want to try the experiment yourself, read the article and be sure to go through the slide show of the experiment. Wonderful stuff, and explained very well.
I love physics, and when I was young (up into junior-senior high school) wanted to go into some branch of physics as a career. Alas, I discovered that my aptitude for math wasn’t sufficient, and followed other interests. But I have continued to read and keep up with the advance of physics on a ‘popular science’ sort of level. And I have enough respect for the things that science has provided us that I tried to stay true to known science when writing Communion.
[Spoiler alert.] The single biggest leap in Communion is the bit in chapter three where I talk about Hawking’s Conundrum – the supposed break-through treatise that Stephen Hawking writes, but leaves to be published after his death. I only describe the revolution in physics that it creates, and the technology that it enables, I don’t actually try and explain how it works. Because I’m just not that smart, nor even knowledgeable enough to fake being that smart. Fortunately, the standards of science fiction writing are such that we don’t actually have to come up with complete explanations for everything.
Still, if you take the supposition that such a breakthrough in theory does occur, which somehow resolves some of the glitches in both quantum mechanics and string theory the same way that the theory of relativity resolved some of the problems with Newtonian physics, then add in sufficient time for the implications of the theory to be understood and applied, then most of what follows in the book should be accurate. No, really.
I am reminded of a half-remembered anecdote (and if anyone can remember it more completely, please drop me a note or leave a comment – I’d be much obliged). I believe that it was Jerry Siegel, one of the creators of Superman, who once was challenged by a reader asking how Superman was able to do some particular thing. Siegel replied that he could say that it was due to this, or that, but that basically it was because he created the character and said so.
I’ve always loved that. Yeah, sure, you want to have enough plausibility to allow the reader to suspend their disbelief, but when fans get so wrapped up in all the insane details of some piece of fiction (whether it is Superman, Star Trek, or Harry Potter), then I can’t help but feel that they’ve lost a bit of perspective, and can no longer appreciate the forest for being focused on which particular lichen is growing on a rock at the foot of one of the trees. Don’t get me wrong – I would *love* to have the kind of fan base that would so get into my book that they would get sucked in to the minutia of my universe – but the larger story in each of those cases is more important, just as I like to think that the larger story of Communion is more important than the details of the tech used.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Artificial Intelligence, Expert systems, General Musings, Predictions, Press, Science Fiction, Society, tech, Writing stuff
So, it seems that we’re taking another step into the development of the types of “experts” (expert systems) that I envision for Communion: today Reuters news service is launching an automated stock-trading algorythm which will scan news articles and make stock purchasing decisions for clients. From Yahoo! Finance:
Reuters Group PLC plans to launch a computer program today aimed at hedge fund and bank trading desk clients that are already Reuters subscribers. The program is unique in that it scans news articles, originally just from Reuters’s own news service but eventually from other news services too, and measures whether companies are getting positive or negative news coverage. The program will then trigger stock trades based on the algorithmic computations it makes. In addition to tracking individual company names, the program can track entire industries or exchanges, ideal for ETF plays.
Is this Seth’s great-great-whatever- grandpappy?
Jim Downey
Filed under: Feedback, General Musings, Predictions, Promotion, Science Fiction, tech, Writing stuff
Sometimes I can be so dense. Got this note from “Mike” in Arizona (will ID him more completely, or let him claim credit in comments, if he wishes) yesterday:
I have been a fan of the UTI site and its several bloggers for some time. I recently became aware of your SF novel ‘A Communion of Dreams’ online thru UTI. I downloaded the book a coupla weeks ago and just completed it. A good read! I have passed it on to several other SF fans as well who are enjoying it. So your estimate of 2000 downloads of the book may be misleadingly low, if others pass on the PDF file as I did. I wanted to thank you for sharing it free ‘online’, and wish you the best in your future efforts.
I found the book entertaining and interesting on several levels, and especially the technology. As with so much else in SF writing, it may well prove visionary. I visited the CoD website and read your comments there–I’d just like to add that Kim Stanley Robinson is my favorite SF author.
Thanx again!
And I have to confess that it hadn’t crossed my mind that people might share the files or hand off printed pages, when the whole thing can be downloaded for free on the Communion of Dreams website. Makes me feel like a complete idiot.
Not that it really matters. Since I’m not worried about getting payments from people for reading the book this way, I don’t care if they share it with others. But I may need to keep open the notion that my stats for downloads (now just under 2,400) might not be an accurate reflection of how many people have read the book.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Connections, Fermi's Paradox, General Musings, James Burke, Predictions, Saturn, Science Fiction, Space, tech, Titan, Writing stuff
In my previous post, I commented that the universe had just changed with the discovery of 581 c. A friend who saw this responded that no, the uninverse didn’t change – our perception of it did.
Well, yes, and that was exactly what I meant. I was referring to the wonderful series The Day the Universe Changed by science historian James Burke. If you are unfamiliar with it, by all means track down the series and enjoy. It is primarily about Kuhn’s concept of paradigm shift, leavened with a nice helping of applied philosophy. If you’ve seen any of the Connections series that Burke has done, you’ve probably got an idea how he would approach this issue.
The idea that our perception of the universe fundamentally determines our actions is one that I use explicitly in Communion of Dreams. [Spoiler alert.] In the book, the entirety of the scientific community believes that ours is the only civilization still active in at least our little corner of the universe. That belief is challenged by the discovery of an alien artifact on Titan, the moon of Saturn. From then on the story line spins out exploring the very nature of perception and knowledge in the very midst of a paradigm shift – all tightly controlled (at least at first) within the small community of people involved. At each stage of revelation, the characters have to confront and integrate new knowledge, and how they cope with that radical shift is at the very heart of the story that I tell.
This is why after posting my brief “welcome” last night, I kicked back and had a wee dram of my favorite scotch. Because whether or not most people realize it, this event was a turning point in our history. Yes, we all expected that sooner or later such a planet would be found – but now it has happened, and the universe around us is now viewed differently. Sure, the universe itself hasn’t changed – but how we understand it has undergone a shift. Just a small one, but an important one nonetheless.
And just think what will happen when we discover life elsewhere. Particularly intelligent, technological life. And after you start to understand the impact that will have, sit back and once again consider what it is my characters in Communion are going through.
Jim Downey
Filed under: General Musings, Predictions, Science Fiction, Society, Space, tech, Writing stuff
Wow. It may not seem like it, but the universe just changed.
No, this doesn’t mean that there is life elsewhere other than our little rock. Let alone intelligent life. But make no mistake – this is something of a milestone.
Welcome 581 c. Welcome to the history books.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Carl Sagan, Cassini, General Musings, movies, NASA, Predictions, Saturn, Science Fiction, Space, tech, Titan, Writing stuff
NASA has put up a nice little movie showing the rings of Saturn as seen by the Cassini spacecraft as it transitions through the plane of those rings – fascinating stuff. Of course, you can also see a lot of images taken during the Cassini mission at the CICLOPS site, including many different images of Titan – images which conform to my suppositions about the surface of that moon in Communion of Dreams.
That’s hardly just luck, of course. I tried to base my depiction of the moon in keeping with the best known science at the time of writing, and during revisions updating to reflect new data once the Cassini mission arrived at Saturn. As I have mentioned previously, Carl Sagan’s work was of particular value to me in formulating not just the environment of Titan, but in also how weather works there.
Emphasis on keeping everything as accurate and in accord with known science was important to me in writing Communion, so far as I was able. I even made extensive use of a precursor to this JPL site in calculating distance (as reflected in the amount of time it takes radio signals to travel) for the actual dates mentioned in the book. It’s kind of fun – you just plug in your date, select your two points in the solar system, and the site will not only give you distance in km/miles but also show you what you would see from a specified vantage point if you were looking through a telescope. I no longer remember whether the earlier site gave me actual light-minutes distances (which would also be how long radio waves would take to transit), or if I did the calculations myself. Either way, the numbers cited in the book are accurate.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Apollo program, BoingBoing, Buzz Aldrin, General Musings, Government, NASA, Neil Armstrong, Science Fiction, Space, tech, Writing stuff
It’d be fun to include this little gem into any future revision of Communion. From an article in Aviation Week:
Space History Buffs Try to Save Sat Dish
A chance reading of a “for sale” advertisement in a weekly newspaper has launched a group of 30 space history buffs on a mission to save the 30-meter Jamesburg AT&T/Comsat satellite dish about an hour from Monterey, Calif.
The dish was built in 1968 to support the Apollo 11 moon landing a year later. Besides its commercial duties, it also played a role in capturing and distributing images of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, says Pat Barthelow, an avionics technician from Sacramento who first noticed the ad in the Carmel (Calif.) Pine Cone and quickly put out the word.The weekend restorers worked over the past four months to get the dish running. The 10-story high dish is housed in a 20,000 square foot building, both of which are in excellent shape, Barthelow said.
[Mild spoiler] This would make for a perfect reference about ‘industrial archeology’ for Arthur Bailey to make at any of several junctures in the book. I love the notion that people are now starting to realize that the NASA era contains valuable historical artifacts that are outside our usual scope of consideration. Sure, someday there will be a dome covering the site of the Apollo 11 landing, where Niel Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked. But places like the Jamesburg Earth Station are just as valuable from the perspective of understanding the tech behind our first ventures into space.
(Via BoingBoing.)
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, Fermi's Paradox, General Musings, Predictions, Science Fiction, Space, tech, Writing stuff
If you’ve read Communion, [spoiler alert] you know that I posit the existence of other intelligences in the galaxy, but that our solar system has been ’embargoed’ from receiving any radio transmission from those civilizations through a huge network of the alien artifacts (one of which is at the center of the entire story line). This is my way of accounting for ‘Fermi’s Paradox‘, which basically states that if there are extra-terrestrial civilizations, we should have seen evidence of them.
A recent discovery makes me wonder whether I need to do a minor revision of the novel to account for this:
Near-Perfect Symmetry Revealed in Red Cosmic Square
By Ker Than
Staff Writer
posted: 12 April 2007
02:00 pm ETIf symmetry is a sign of splendor, then the newly discovered Red Square nebula is one of the most beautiful objects in the universe.
Seen in the infrared, the nebula resembles a giant, glowing red box in the sky, with a bright white inner core. A dying star called MWC 922 is located at the system’s center and spewing its innards from opposite poles into space.
No, I’m not saying that this is evidence of stellar engineering on a massive scale by some extra-terrestrial civilization. But it is a fascinating thought…
Jim Downey
Filed under: Buzz Aldrin, General Musings, movies, NASA, Predictions, Science Fiction, Space, tech
I recently came across this old (going on 5 years now) vid of Buzz Aldrin popping Bart Sibrel (a proponent of theory that the lunar landings were a hoax) in the mouth when the guy confronts him:
I grew up with the “Space Race”, and it helped to shape a lot of my attitudes and thoughts about not just science fiction, but about life. The men (unfortunately, the mindset of the time meant that astronauts were all men) who were in that program accepted that it was a very risky thing to want to go into space, but thought that the risks were worth it. Sure, NASA was working to limit the dangers, but it was just a given that the dangers would always be there.
That was a different era. From my perspective now, it was not unlike adolescence, when you *think* you can understand the risks you’re taking in doing stupid and dangerous things, but you don’t really – your brain hasn’t matured sufficiently, and you don’t have enough experience to know just how crazy you’re being. But when you have a couple of close calls – or lose some friends and loved ones – your perspective changes, and you want to take a safer path. We call it maturity in an individual, and prudence in the space program.
But I fear that it has become just timidness, and is the reason why we haven’t continued to build on our early successes (and failures) in our efforts to explore our solar system.
There is a natural, and understandable, reaction to facing death and injury (of every sort, from physical to emotional to financial): you seek safety. You try and arrange your life to be less dangerous, to be more predictable. Or at least that’s how most people react. And really, it is not a bad thing, for a person or for a society, to take that course.
But sometimes it works out that an individual, or a society, will have an incentive to continue the risk-taking. In the ‘history’ of Communion, I have the real exploitation of space being spurred by disaster – initially, it is by the Israeli effort to establish a viable sanctuary on the Moon using conventional heavy-lift rockets after a devastating nuclear exchange. This is undertaken even in the face of huge risks (the tech is only where we’re at now – meaning that rockets, with crew and passengers, are lost perhaps 5-10% of the time), because it is felt that these risks outweigh those of staying on Earth.
Humans are complex. We don’t always respond to stimuli in ways which are predictable by a simple formula. Sometimes, the calculation of risk goes all wonky. Sometimes we factor in so many variables that we ourselves don’t even understand our decisions. And sometimes, we just plain make mistakes. As a fiction author, I love that – it gives plenty of latitude in plotting and character.
Buzz Aldrin would probably say in retrospect that the risks he took to go to the Moon were well worth it, that he and the other astronauts knew well the dangers they faced, and that they didn’t change when confronted with death and loss. Rather, they did what they could to correct the problems that they encountered, adjusted and went on…knowing that there were many other risks still facing them.
That he didn’t allow those adjustments to make him timid is clear in his reaction to Sibrel. Sure, there are other ways of dealing with an idiot who is harrassing you, particularly when you’re a 72 year-old man. Some of them are arguably better ways. But it gives me a certain smile every time I think about that incident to know that “The Right Stuff” hasn’t completely disappeared.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 