Metafiction vs. fiction; Dyson Spheres; graphical Turing Test; existential angst 101; giant lunar robot transformer bases FTW …

• 1 – Popular Metafiction vs. Science Fiction, Revisited for 2008
  “From the amount of related magazines, online pubs, review sites, and market sites like Ralans, it is increasingly evident who the primary audience for short SF is today: other writers.” Stoddard spotlights the elephant in the room.
  (tags: industry career publication writing literature fiction science scifi sf)
• 2 – Dyson Spheres: Hoping to Be Surprised
  “A negative result in a search for Dyson spheres or anomalous galaxies may only point to the limitations of our ability to project where technologies go as societies enter higher Kardashev levels.”
  (tags: technology Kardashev DysonSphere macroengineering civilisation futurism space)
• 3 – Matrix-style virtual worlds ‘a few years away’
  “The key to passing the Graphics Turing Test, says McGuigan, is to marry that photorealism with software that can render images in real-time – defined as a refresh rate of 30 frames per second.”
  (tags: worlds reality synthetic virtual photorealism singularity simulation graphics metaverse)
• 4 – Four things that spook the shit out of me
  “Every once in a while I get hit by waves of existential angst. When this happens, it’s likely that I’m dwelling on one (or more) typical personal anxiety points.” Only four? I respect you, George, but on this at least I have you beaten.
  (tags: angst philosophy existential)
• 5 – Intelligent paint turns roads pink in icy conditions
  “A new temperature-sensitive varnish developed by researchers at French company Eurovia can be applied to road surfaces to warn drivers about dangerous conditions.”
  (tags: driving roads technology weather temperature colour materials paint)
• 6 – Giant robots could carry lunar bases on their backs
  “NASA engineers are testing out a giant, six-legged robot that could pick up and move a future Moon base thousands of kilometres across the lunar surface …” Lunar-science-mechasOMG!!
  (tags: lunar base, robots, science, Moon, space,)