Filed under: Brave New World, Humor, movies, Paleo-Future, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Society | Tags: BiteLabs, blogging, Harry Harrison, humor, jim downey, movies, predictions, science, Science Fiction, Soylent Green, technology
Now comes the perfect commoditization of celebrity:
“BiteLabs grows meat from celebrity tissue samples and uses it to make artisanal salami.” So proclaims the copy on BiteLabs.org, right under an all-caps call to action: EAT CELEBRITY MEAT. The site proposes taking actual tissue samples of celebrities—specifically, James Franco, Kanye West, Jennifer Lawrence, and Ellen DeGeneres—and growing their cloned meat for use in a marketable salami blend.
* * *
“The product is indeed salami,” Kevin says. “Each salami will have roughly 30% celebrity meat and 40% lab-grown animal meats (we’re currently looking into ostrich and venison but it pork and beef are more popular in our early research). The rest will consist of fats and spices. This break-down comes from consultation with expert food designers and chefs.”
Admittedly, I have an … odd … sense of humor, but for the life of me I can’t figure out whether this is funnier if it is satire or if it is real.
Welcome to the future, though it’s a bit different than what we expected.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Brave New World, Civil Rights, Connections, Constitution, Expert systems, General Musings, Government, movies, Music, Philip K. Dick, Predictions, Privacy, Science Fiction, tech, Violence, YouTube | Tags: augmented reality, Buffalo Springfield, civil liberties, Constitution, jim downey, movies, music, Philip K. Dick, predictions, Science Fiction, technology, The Minority Report, The Verge, video, www youtube
There’s something happening here
But what it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware*
When the Chicago Police Department sent one of its commanders to Robert McDaniel’s home last summer, the 22-year-old high school dropout was surprised. Though he lived in a neighborhood well-known for bloodshed on its streets, he hadn’t committed a crime or interacted with a police officer recently. And he didn’t have a violent criminal record, nor any gun violations. In August, he incredulously told the Chicago Tribune, “I haven’t done nothing that the next kid growing up hadn’t done.” Yet, there stood the female police commander at his front door with a stern message: if you commit any crimes, there will be major consequences. We’re watching you.
What McDaniel didn’t know was that he had been placed on the city’s “heat list” — an index of the roughly 400 people in the city of Chicago supposedly most likely to be involved in violent crime. Inspired by a Yale sociologist’s studies and compiled using an algorithm created by an engineer at the Illinois Institute of Technology, the heat list is just one example of the experiments the CPD is conducting as it attempts to push policing into the 21st century.
Jim Downey
*
Filed under: Brave New World, Connections, Mars, NPR, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, tech | Tags: blogging, Communion of Dreams, Hod Lipson, jim downey, Justin Werfel, Mars, microbots, NPR, predictions, robotics, science, Science Fiction, space, technology, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering
From page 4 of Communion of Dreams:
They were, in essence, enclosing the entire planet in a greenhouse of glass fabric and golden plasteel. It was going to take generations to finish, even using mass microbots and fabricating the construction materials from the Martian sands. Tens of thousands of the specially programmed microbots, a few centimeters long and a couple wide, would swarm an area, a carpet of shifting, building insects. As each cell was finished, it was sealed, joined to the adjacent cells, and then the microbots would move on.
Those microbots play a big role in the novel, being a factor in the plot. More importantly, they are a basic part of the tech I envision for the book, accelerating our technological recovery on Earth as well as our venture into space.
Well, guess what was on the news last night:
Robot Construction Workers Take Their Cues From Termites
“We’ve created this system of multiple independent robots that build things we ask for,” says [Justin] Werfel, “and they do it more like the way insects act than the way that robots normally act.”
The robots don’t look like termites. Instead, they look more like black, mechanical beetles, about 8 inches long. They have just a few on-board sensors that let them navigate around a work site set up in a lab.
* * *
“They build things that are much larger than themselves,” says Werfel. “They climb on what they are … building to get to higher places, and they coordinate what they are doing using a tool that termites use.
“Rather than talk to one another directly, they coordinate indirectly by changing their shared environment,” he explains. “So one puts down some material, another one comes along and reacts to that material, and uses that to help it decide later whether to put more material down.”
* * *
The vision is that, someday, swarms of robots could stack up sandbags to protect against flooding, or go to Mars and build living quarters for astronauts. That’s still a long way off. But this is a proof of principle study that construction robots can work together like termites, says Hod Lipson, an engineer at Cornell University who specializes in robotics.
I love it when stuff like this happens.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Augmented Reality, Brave New World, Connections, Humor, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Singularity, Space, Stephen Hawking | Tags: augmented reality, black holes, blogging, Communion of Dreams, humor, jim downey, physics, predictions, science, Science Fiction, singularity, space, St. Cybi's Well, Stephen Hawking, technology, writing
From Chapter 3 of Communion of Dreams:
Apparent Gravity was the third major application of the theories set forth in Hawking’s Conundrum, the great opus of
Stephen Hawking which was not published until after his death in the earlier part of the century. He hadn’t released the work because evidently even he couldn’t really believe that it made any sense. It was, essentially, both too simple and too complex. And since he had died just shortly before the Fire-flu, with the chaos that brought, there had been a lag in his theory being fully understood and starting to be applied.But it did account for all the established data, including much of the stuff that seemed valid but didn’t fit inside the previous paradigms. Using his theories, scientists and engineers learned that the structure of space itself could be manipulated.
Of course, that is the reality of St. Cybi’s Well, not our own. In our reality, there’s been no fire-flu (at least yet), Stephen Hawking is still alive, and the laws of physics are still the same.
Black holes are in crisis. Well, not them, but the people who think about them, theoretical physicists who try to understand the relationship between the two pillars of modern physics, general relativity and quantum physics. Judging from the current discussions, one of the two must go, at least in their present formulation. On January 22nd, Stephen Hawking posted a paper where he bluntly stated that black holes, in the sense of being objects that can trap light and everything else indefinitely, are no more. And that’s a big deal.
Sometimes I wonder what reality I am actually plugged into, since it seems that I keep getting leaks from the other one.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Ballistics, Connections, Guns, Music, Science, tech, YouTube | Tags: Alan Parsons Project, art, ballistics, BBTI, blogging, guns, Herra Kuulapaa, high-speed photography, jim downey, music, photography, science, Stereotomy, technology, video, www youtube
For those who don’t know, one of my other interests is handgun ballistics research. Specifically, in regards to how barrel length effects bullet velocity for different cartridges and loadings. Even if you don’t like guns, the physics behind ballistic performance can be very interesting.
And here’s a wonderfully graphic image showing those physical forces:
Text from the source to go with this image (site is Finnish, and English is not the author’s first language):
Let’s talk a bit about .44 Magnum cartridge. Despite of being very close to diameter of .45ACP the .44Mag is totally different beast. Average .45ACP round generates ~650J of hit energy while .44Mag makes easily 1600J and can be pushed much more beyond that. This specific gun however cannot utilize all potential of .44 Magnum cartridge because of very short barrel. It simply cannot burn all powder. As you can see there is huge cone shaped spray of unburnt stuff flying in the air. With longer barrel show would be different.
Ok, you may have noticed the flames. They are something we haven’t seen before. Especially when you look picture below and huge left side flame in it. Interesting thing is that major amount of the flame is escaping between cylinder and barrel. That short barrel seems to puff bullet our so fast that powder mass just flies out unignited.
The site is filled with a bunch of great high-speed camera images of guns being fired. And it also has something else which is new to me: ‘natural stereoscopic’ images of guns being fired. Like this one:
Now, what do I mean ‘natural stereoscopic’ images? Well, this is pretty cool itself. Here’s a reference link & explanation from the Kuulapaa site:
Help: How to Free-View the Stereo Pairs
Each stereo view consists of two images, one for each eye. Free viewing is the technique that will allow you to direct each of these images separately and simultaneously into each eye. Once that happens, you are said to have “fused” the pair of images into a stereo view.
At the bottom of this page a stereo pair of images is loading with which you can practice. All the stereo pairs shown on this site are in the “cross-eyed” format (my apologies to all the “wall-eyed” people). That means that the first (leftmost) image is for your right eye and the right image is for your left eye.
There are then a series of practice image to show what he means and give you a chance to develop this viewing skill. It works fairly well for me, but does tire my eye muscles fairly quickly. Give it a try and see how you do.
Jim Downey
*Couldn’t resist. Lyrics here.
Cross posted to the BBTI blog.
Filed under: Amazon, Brave New World, Connections, Feedback, General Musings, Google, Humor, Kindle, Marketing, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Society, tech, Travel, Wales | Tags: 1991, Amazon, blogging, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, electronics, feedback, free, Google Earth, humor, Jamie Norris, jim downey, Kindle, predictions, promotion, science, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, Steve Cichon, technology, travel, Typhoon, video, Wales
It’s a view of Wales most of us will never see.
This video was filmed from the cockpit of a Typhoon fighter jet which flies over North Wales before heading to the Lake District.
The man behind the controls is Flight Lieutenant Jamie Norris, the RAF’s Typhoon display pilot and a member of RAF Coningsby, based in Lincolnshire, who calmly talks viewers through his manoeuvres at altitudes of between 250ft and 40,000ft.
There’s an embedded video which is a real delight, too, for anyone who isn’t afraid of heights/motion.
I haven’t flown at low altitude over Wales, so I can’t really speak as to how this compares to the slower velocity of a small plane or helicopter. However, I was struck by just how similar the video is to viewing the same terrain via Google Earth, which I have done a *lot* of in the last couple of months as I write St. Cybi’s Well. The ability to zoom in, rotate orientation, and even change the angle to the horizon allows you very much get the sense of flying through the landscape — it’s a very cool technology.
And speaking of very cool technology, just thought I’d share this little item, which gives a nice bit of perspective: Everything from 1991 Radio Shack ad I now do with my phone. It’s a pretty impressive list, and shows how a whole pile of electronics valued at about $5,000 in today’s money has been replaced by a smartphone that fits in your pocket and costs about $500.
And speaking of 500 … that’s about the total number of world-wide downloads of Communion of Dreams so far in the current promotion. Which in itself is a pretty cool bit of technology. If you haven’t yet gotten your copy of the Kindle edition of the book (which you can read on, yes, smartphones as well as any number of other devices), pop over and get it today!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Astronomy, Bad Astronomy, Connections, Emergency, Failure, General Musings, Government, Humor, Kindle, Marketing, movies, NASA, Nuclear weapons, Phil Plait, Predictions, Preparedness, Promotion, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Space, tech, YouTube | Tags: Amazon, asteroid, Bad Astronomy, blogging, Chelyabinsk, Command and Control, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, Dr. Strangelove, Eric Schlosser, free, Herman Kahn., humor, jim downey, Kindle, movies, NASA, nuclear weapons, Phil Plait, predictions, promotion, science, Science Fiction, space, technology, The New Yorker, USSR, video, www youtube
Next Wednesday is the 50th anniversary of the release of the classic film “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” It’s long been one of my favorite movies, even as a kid. Yeah, I was a strange kid. Don’t act like you’re surprised.
Anyway, Eric Schlosser has a good article in The New Yorker reflecting on how the movie, originally considered a farce, was actually frighteningly accurate. From the article:
A decade after the release of “Strangelove,” the Soviet Union began work on the Perimeter system—-a network of sensors and computers that could allow junior military officials to launch missiles without oversight from the Soviet leadership. Perhaps nobody at the Kremlin had seen the film. Completed in 1985, the system was known as the Dead Hand. Once it was activated, Perimeter would order the launch of long-range missiles at the United States if it detected nuclear detonations on Soviet soil and Soviet leaders couldn’t be reached. Like the Doomsday Machine in “Strangelove,” Perimeter was kept secret from the United States; its existence was not revealed until years after the Cold War ended.
“Detecting nuclear detonations” … hmm, where have I heard that phrase recently? Oh, yeah:
A Sound of Cosmic Thunder: Earth-Impacting Asteroid Heard by Nuke Detectors
On the second day of 2014, a small asteroid blew up high in Earth’s atmosphere. It was relatively harmless—the rock was only a couple of meters across, far too small to hit the ground or do any real damage—and it disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean anyway.
What’s cool is that now we know for sure this is the case: Infrasound detectors designed to listen for nuclear bomb detonations actually heard the explosion from the impact and were able to pinpoint the location of the event to a few hundred kilometers east off the coast of Venezuela.
NASA put together a nice informative video explaining it:
Gee, it sure is a good thing nothing like that has ever hit the territory of the old USSR … er, oops.
And now that I’ve given you a nice dose of fright, let me make it up to you with a reminder that you can download Communion of Dreams (which has it all … game theory, nuclear exchanges, and more than a little of my old strangeness) for free today and tomorrow!
Jim Downey
*The title of one of Herman Kahn‘s books about nuclear war/deterrence, and where I think I was first exposed to the concepts behind game theory. I’ve got Schlosser’s book Command and Control on my to-read list when the Kindle price comes down a bit.
Filed under: DARPA, Government, Science, Science Fiction, tech, YouTube | Tags: blogging, DARPA, jim downey, JPL, RoboSimian, robotics, science, Science Fiction, technology, www youtube
… well, you know the rest. Granted, the RoboSimian is still tethered, and moves fairly slowly, but it certainly is another glimpse into how quickly robotics are progressing. See for yourself:
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Amazon, Art, Augmented Reality, Brave New World, Connections, Feedback, Kindle, Marketing, NPR, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, tech | Tags: art, augmented reality, AWARE camera program, blogging, care-giving, Communion of Dreams, David Brady, direct publishing, feedback, free, GigaPan, gigapixel, hospice, jim downey, John Bourke, Kindle, NPR, photography, promotion, science, Science Fiction, technology
This is a really cool application of imaging technology: a massed ball of high-quality digital cameras which can capture a gigapixel panorama in one instant. And the neat thing is that one of the main people behind this understands that while he can imagine some uses for such a camera system, there will come applications which he cannot now envision. From the NPR story:
His team has photographed Duke University football games, for example, that let you zoom in and see the ball in the air, plus the faces of all the players in the field, and the faces of all the fans in the stands.
“I can’t imagine … how people are going to use these things,” Brady says, “and, of course, since I’m an instrument builder, that’s the real interest. Because I’m sure photographers will use it in ways that I haven’t even thought of.”
Nice to see that awareness of shifting reality.
And a quick reminder of another kind of awareness: Communion of Dreams and Her Final Year are both available for free download today and tomorrow.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 
