Filed under: Connections, Science Fiction, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, Castell Mawr, Craig Rhosyfelin, jim downey, Pentre Ifan, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, Stonehenge, writing
Been a while since I posted an excerpt. Partly that has been due to the fact that a number of different things have conspired to slow down my writing progress the last few weeks. But I finally seem to be making good headway again, and thought I would share a bit from today’s efforts:
Darnell nodded. “Sure. Now let’s take a look at that satellite map.”
He pulled out his phone again, tapped it a couple of times. Soon they were looking down at their current location centered on the map, with the resolution such that Pentre Ifan was off on the very left edge of the screen. St. John pointed at a slightly lopsided ring due north of Craig Rhosyfelin about the same distance from Pentre Ifan. “There. See?”
Darnell zoomed in on the image. The ring expanded until it was about half the size of the screen. It was actually a double ring of trees, bisected by a chevron of a single line of trees. “Yeah, OK. Not a perfect circle. Looks like it has a bit of a pinch on the east side, almost as if pointing that way.”
“Exactly!”
“I’m sorry, I don’t follow you.”
St. John pointed at the screen. “Points due east. That’s because before it was made into a hill fort, there’s evidence to suggest that it was a henge.”
“Huh.” Darnell looked at the image again. “Yeah, I can see that.”
“And I think that it wasn’t just any henge. I think that it was the precursor to Stonehenge.” St. John looked at Darnell, and there was a slightly mad gleam in his eye. “In fact, I think that the henge which was there was disassembled and then transported to Wiltshire and rebuilt as the structure we all know today.”
The site they’re discussing is Castell Mawr.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Astronomy, Connections, Fermi's Paradox, Humor, Predictions, Science Fiction, SETI, Space, Survival | Tags: astronomy, blogging, Communion of Dreams, Fermi's Paradox, humor, jim downey, predictions, Randall Munroe, Science Fiction, space, xkcd
If you consider the full implications of what is revealed in Communion of Dreams, this might well be a fairly good explanation …
From the brilliant Randall Munroe, of course. Go to his site to see the ‘hidden text’.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Connections, General Musings, NASA, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, SETI, Space | Tags: Anthropology, Archaeology, blogging, Communion of Dreams, Douglas A. Vakoch, jim downey, NASA, Open Culture, predictions, science, Science Fiction, SETI, space
From Chapter 1 of Communion of Dreams:
“I’ve had my expert do a preliminary search through the old NASA archives. I recalled that they had protocols for dealing with such possible situations, and I doubt that anyone else has really thought much about it since the turn of the century.
“In addition to Don’s field team, the preliminary search suggests that another component should be theoretical, a mix of disciplines so that we can get as broad a spectrum of experience and mind-set as possible. Probably we should have an expert in computer technology. A cultural anthropologist. Someone with a background in game theory and communication strategy. An artist or two. We’ll see if a more thorough survey of the NASA material has any good suggestions beyond that. I’ll get to work identifying appropriate individuals.”
Well, guess what news was announced last week:
During the past few years, NASA has released a series of free ebooks, including NASA Earth As Art and various interactive texts focusing on the Webb and Hubble space telescopes. Last week, they added a new, curious book to the collection, Archaeology, Anthropology, and Interstellar Communication. Edited by Douglas A. Vakoch (the Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute), the text contemplates how we’ll go about “establishing meaningful communication with an extraterrestrial intelligence.” The scholars contributing to the volume “grappl[e] with some of the enormous challenges that will face humanity if an information-rich signal emanating from another world is detected.” And to make sure that we’re “prepared for contact with an extraterrestrial civilization, should that day ever come,” they draw on “issues at the core of contemporary archaeology and anthropology.” Why archaeology and anthropology? Because, says Vackoch, communication with intelligent life probably won’t be through sound, but through images. We will need to read/understand the civilization we encounter based on what we observe.
Heh. I love seeing this stuff happen.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Connections, NYT, Predictions, Quantum mechanics, Science, Science Fiction, tech | Tags: blogging, jim downey, Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, New York Times, predictions, quantum computing, quantum teleportation, science, Science Fiction, technology
Short paragraph. Big implications:
Realizing robust quantum information transfer between long-lived qubit registers is a key challenge for quantum information science and technology. Here, we demonstrate unconditional teleportation of arbitrary quantum states between diamond spin qubits separated by 3 m. We prepare the teleporter through photon-mediated heralded entanglement between two distant electron spins and subsequently encode the source qubit in a single nuclear spin. By realizing a fully deterministic Bell-state measurement combined with real-time feed-forward quantum teleportation is achieved upon each attempt with an average state fidelity exceeding the classical limit. These results establish diamond spin qubits as a prime candidate for the realization of quantum networks for quantum communication and network-based quantum computing.
Decent explanation (at least from what I know) in this article. Excerpt:
Scientists in the Netherlands have moved a step closer to overriding one of Albert Einstein’s most famous objections to the implications of quantum mechanics, which he described as “spooky action at a distance.”
In a paper published on Thursday in the journal Science, physicists at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at the Delft University of Technology reported that they were able to reliably teleport information between two quantum bits separated by three meters, or about 10 feet.
Ten feet may not sound like much, but it is a huge increase — previously, reliable teleportation of information was on the scale of just billionths of a meter. This change opens the door to functional quantum computing, which would have the same relation to current computing power that current computing power has to mechanical calculating machines of about the WWII era.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Health, Humor, Science, Society | Tags: blogging, health, humor, jim downey, medicine, obesity, science, society, Wallis Simpson
The doctor looked up from her laptop, where the patient’s medical history was displayed. “Have you been doing those exercises we discussed?”
“Every day. Well, most days. I miss doing them sometimes if I’m traveling or if the kids are running late in the morning.”
“You do understand that they’re really important, right?” She looked her patient right in the eye. “Every. Single. Day.”
He looked down at his feet, dangling off of the exam table. “Sorry. I’ll try and do better.”
“I certainly hope so. Lifespan is correlated with how tall you are. Short people just do not live as long.” She glanced at the laptop again. “Now, how about your meds & vitamin supplements? Taking those?”
The patient didn’t look up. “The vitamins, yes. Religiously. But the prescriptions … they’re *SO* expensive. My insurance company doesn’t cover them, because my shortness is considered a lifestyle choice.”
The doctor shook her head. “Yeah, I know. Medical science still considers height as being only partially due to genetics. But still, you really have to do your best. Take the meds. I’ll get you some free samples — the sales reps are always leaving that stuff for us.”
“Thanks.” He looked up. “Doc, what do you think of maybe the surgical option?”
“Surgery?”
“Yeah.”
“Does your insurance cover it?”
“Surprisingly, yes. Well, not here in the States.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’ve got a thing set-up with a clinic in India: for the whole six-month breaking & lengthening process, they cover it. Lots less expensive than here in the US.”
The doctor made a face. “I know they’re supposed to do good work … ”
“Doc, they can add two inches to my overall height.”
“Yes, but at what risk?”
“Not much. Not too different than having it done here.” His face brightened a bit. “I’m not getting any younger. You know what a difference it can make for dating and career. Just think … I could be almost six foot tall!”
The doctor sighed. “Look, I know this is hard. But stick with the stretching exercises and meds I’ve prescribed. Maybe start going to a rack therapist — they can usually add up to an inch in the course of a year.”
“Yeah, OK.”
“And watch your diet. Stay away from those short sugars. Proteins are long. Makes a difference.”
Jim Downey
*With apologies to Her Grace.
Filed under: Art, Firefly, Humor, Joss Whedon, Science Fiction | Tags: animation, art, blogging, Firefly, humor, jim downey, JohnnyExpress, Josh Whedon, Mal, Science Fiction, space, video, Vimeo
‘Cause I damned near laughed my butt off at this:
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Book Conservation, Connections, General Musings, MetaFilter, University of Missouri | Tags: Anastasia Pottinger, art, blogging, book conservation, bookbinding, Erik Kwakkel, In Praise of Shadows, jim downey, Medieval Fragments, MetaFilter, photography
If you are at all interested in rare/old books and documents, particularly of the medieval period, you owe it to yourself to check out the Medieval Fragments blog occasionally. In particular, I always enjoy the posts by Erik Kwakkel, such as the recent one titled “The Beauty of the Injured Book“. Here’s a particular image and excerpt:
4. Touched by a human
Books are made for reading and thus for being handled by human hands. The margins facilitate an easy grip of the book without your fingers blocking the view on the text. However, if you hold a book with dirty hands, you may leave your mark behind as a reader. While such stains are often subtle, the person that handled this twelfth-century manuscript had inky fingers: he left a fingerprint behind. Judging from the colour – a shiny, deep kind of black – it concerns printing ink, which puts this manuscript in the hands of a printer. He did not bother to wash his hands. It was, after all, one of those old-fashioned handwritten manuscripts, which had been long overtaken by the modern and spiffy printed book.
As I noted on Facebook this morning when I linked to that blog post, often old books are beautiful entirely because of their age and use. Sometimes clients are surprised when I tell them to just leave the damned thing alone and enjoy it. There’s no need to rob a book of the character which it has developed through centuries of sharing life with humans. I’ve touched on this before:
Much of my life is predicated on this idea. When someone brings me an antique book for conservation work, I don’t see the notes and scrawls, the fingerprints and food stains, as something to be eradicated: they are part and parcel of the history of that book. They are scars, a record, a trace of the hands which have handled it, the lives which have loved it. We all carry our own scars, our own patina, and as long as we respect it, respect ourselves, for the record of our accomplishments, they give our age dignity. And depth.
And then there’s this from the introduction to a wonderful series of images:
This body of work was born out of the opportunity I had to photograph a 101 year old woman who volunteered, on her own accord, to model nude for me. It was merely an exercise in documenting her form in a beautiful way. My only instructions from her were to make sure she was not identifiable in the images. She was willing to do anything I asked of her.
When I later reviewed the images on my computer, I knew I was looking at something very special.
Special, indeed.
Jim Downey
PS. Full disclosure: Kwakkel has featured my work previously, and so I may be biased. Link to Pottinger’s site via MetaFilter.
Filed under: Brave New World, Civil Rights, Connections, Government, Humor, Predictions, Privacy, Science Fiction, Society, tech | Tags: blogging, civil liberties, Constitution, Focus Life Gear, government, humor, jim downey, Kunihiko Morinaga, predictions, privacy, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, technology, tracking, writing
I have mentioned this passage from the prelude to St Cybi’s Well a couple of times previously:
He turned the hand-held on, did a quick check to make sure it had the software and apps he’d asked for. Everything was there. He’d pick up a burner phone later, and swap the SIMM card into the hand-held. He turned off the hand-held, dropped it into a special pocket inside his vest – one which was RF-blocked. He had another such compartment in his satchel. These, like the wallet/holster, were prohibited items and grounds for arrest in the States, but while they would raise an eyebrow in the UK they weren’t technically illegal.
And even earlier did a blog post about a commercial product to isolate a phone that way when I first thought of it: Off the Grid Bag. (Which actually works quite well, as a matter of fact; I got one of those and have tested/used it exactly as intended.)
Well, now someone has come up with the idea of making actual articles of clothing using the same idea:
Sure, you could just turn off your phone. But that would be too easy. Now, thanks to Trident (yes, the chewing gum) and fashion designer Kunihiko Morinaga, you can repel all cellphone transmissions simply by wearing these hip threads called Focus Life Gear—made of radio frequency shielding fabric.
I suppose that since I haven’t actually published St Cybi’s Well yet I can’t claim to have predicted this tech, but no matter — it’s an obvious application of existing technology and desire for privacy. But still, kinda fun.
James Downey
Tip of the radio-wave-blocking hat to Tim for the news item! Thanks!
Filed under: Brave New World, Health, Humor, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Society, tech | Tags: blogging, health, humor, jim downey, medicine, predictions, science, Science Fiction, stem cells, technology
“Mr. Jones? This is Jane from Universal Replacements.”
“Yes?”
“I was just calling to tell you that your new left ear will be ready for delivery on Friday. Which medical clinic will be doing the installation?”
“Acme Doctors over on … hey, wait, did you say LEFT ear?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“No, no, no, there’s been a mistake. I ordered a RIGHT ear when I sent in the cell sample.”
“I’m sorry sir, my records clearly indicate that you ordered a LEFT ear when you placed your order.”
“That can’t be right, I know I ordered a RIGHT ear! I don’t need a new LEFT ear!”
“I’m sorry, sir … ”
James Downey
Communion Of Dreams 