Links for 11-01-2007
Bugged Canadian coins, Geek Week at the BBC, lots of space stuff…
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“Canadian coins containing tiny transmitters have mysteriously turned up in the pockets of at least three American contractors who visited Canada…” Why watch your money when it can watch you?
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“Digging on Mars and drilling on the Moon could become the main aims of Europe’s space effort. These were the enticing prospects discussed at a meeting … about the European Space Agency’s exploration programme, Aurora.”
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“The Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC) is organizing a survey to find out what visions for the next 50 years of space are shared by the world’s youth…” Yeah, but do I look bothered?
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4 – Geek Week 2.0“Following the success of Newsnight’s Geek Week in 2006, we present Geek Week v2.0 – a series of films from the cutting edge of technology.” BBC documentaries – one of the few things that make me contemplate getting a TV again.
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“The new data support earlier research … showing that carbonado diamonds formed in stellar supernovae explosions. Black diamonds were once the size of asteroids, a kilometer or more in diameter when they first landed on Earth.”
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“The famous “pillars of creation” – clouds of dust and gas imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope, are no more – a supernova blast wave has blown them apart.” Life goes on.
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“A slim waist is a timeless, universal sign of feminine beauty, according to psychologists examining the works of romantic scribes over two millennia.” Yeah, real scientific. This sort of headline is dangerously foolish.
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“The cat’s eye is a good model to use for this type of research because it is very similar to a human eye in size and construction, so surgeons can use the same techniques and equipment.” Wait for the cyber-eye k1tt4h image macros…
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“…company to make a groundbreaking new brand of circuitry printed on flexible plastic sheets rather than hard silicon chips.” Yes, good; but is the damn stuff recyclable, huh?
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“Brook West, Nebula Award Report editor, announces the Preliminary Ballot for the Nebula Awards® for 2006.” Via Locus. Any SFWA members who read VCTB and value my opinion should vote for Marusek.
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“…libraries might just have a window of opportunity to leap into a future where we add value to our institutions in ways we’ve never imagined before or are only beginning to envision. But that window may already be in the process of slamming shut.”
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“So, in buying a hardback from Amazon, you give me $2.50 by spending roughly double what you’d spend on a paperback. Are you beginning to see where I’m going? You spend the same amount. The authors you support make two and a half times as much.”
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13 – ExperimentationSeems Itzkoff’s woolly thinking has some people convinced. Niall takes the scalpel to fallacious sweeping statements about science fiction literature.
Tags: links
January 11th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Science fiction – it’s escapist junk. How could it prepare you for the future? It’s not like some sf writer could predict, oh I don’t know, let’s say bugged money:
“…It was hard to take American cash seriously when it was no longer convertible outside U.S. borders. Besides, all the bigger bills were bugged….”
(Bruce Sterling, Distraction, 1998)
January 12th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Never a truer word spoke, Bill. Actually, I’m sre I remember The X-Files doing a minor plot thread on bugged bank-notes – something to do wth those metallic strips being coded so that the government could keep a trace on how much cash was moving through airports?