Swarm Intelligences were prevalent on Earth in the form of social insect colonies long before we encountered the Ant Hill. We knew that a set of relatively primitive individual behaviors enhanced with communication will produce a large set of complex swarm behaviors. This observation was instrumental in producing NIPS (NanoIntelligent Protection Systems) and our understanding…
The American Dream
It’s called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it. – George Carlin The American Dream has run out of gas. The car has stopped. It no longer supplies the world with its images, its dreams, its fantasies. No more. It’s over. It supplies the world with its nightmares now. -J….
Aliens: The Snakes of Rist
Rist is an Earth-like planet orbiting a yellow star. Astrogation has not yet pinpointed the location of the system. Explorer craft are free to enter the system but are not permitted to contact or send exploratory missions to Rist or the other planets without expressed permission from the Rist governments. This permission has never been…
The Conquest Society
The planetary solar system around HO Librae (also known as Gliese 581) was discovered in CE 2007, several hundred years ago. At the time we knew very little about planet formation because we were limited to what we could observe within our own solar systems In 2214, during the wane of the Conquest era, a…
Other Intelligences
Throughout the Universe, Human Unity has encountered many forms of intelligences, from the surviving cetaceans (Dolphins) and cephalopods (octopuses) of Earth to the snake-like overminds encountered near Rist. Our society weathered our first contact with the Traders, those unfathomable aliens who gave us our first stepladder to the stars and thus was amply prepared for…
Wii3D…VF….omfg…
Okay, I dig this.
Romero’s Blizzard
Very heavy snowfall overnight. Deeply uncharacteristic! ‘er indoors compared the ungainly gait and broken formations of the snow walkers to the shambling undead today. See why I love her?
Strange New Worlds
I’ve been reading a lot more recently and kinda enjoying the low-tech aspect of it. It doesn’t require batteries, works in almost any light and gives more of a sense of achievement than scouring digg and reddit for interesting links. Last week, Aidan and I were discussing unresolved physics problems as well as discussing our…
Fairly Grim Fairy Tales
I was reading this the other day and it reminded me of a con game I ran, say 10 years ago. It was a sequel to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs where the seven little blokes decided they needed a maidservant again. The players decided that kidnapping Snow White from her life of humdrum…
NearByGamers.com
NearbyGamers hosts listings of gamers. Would you lot just sign up already?
Space is vast, dark and cold.
National Geographic’s Top 10 Space Pics of 2007 Breathtaking stuff. Inspiring too.
Merry Christmas
Not been writing much as I bought a couple of novels and want to chew through them. Most likely see you on the other side.
Screenplays
Slashfilm has the Black List. The list is compiled with a poll of 150 development executives and high-level assistants, and contains a ranking of the hot screenplays making the rounds in Hollywoodland, which were written in, or are somehow uniquely associated with, 2007 and will not be released in theaters during this calendar year.
How to get through the day…
Essential tips for enhancing your enjoyment at work at the expense of productivity I couldn’t survive without this list.
Evel Knievel is dead.
From the BBC: Legendary US daredevil Evel Knievel has died at the age of 69, his granddaughter has said. I’ve never seen Knievel do any of his stunts, in real life or on TV. I just know him through this: It was years until I found out it was based on a real person.
Half man, half tree
There’s a bloke in Indonesia who has a rare immune deficiency: he’s extremely susceptible to the Human Papilloma Virus. It’s not big and it’s not scary because in the rest of us it causes merely warts. Dede’s problem is that he has a rare genetic fault that impedes his immune system, meaning his body is…
The Golden Age of Retro-Future
From Dark Roasted Blend: This is the start of a new series, collection of the most inspiring & hard-to-find retro-futuristic graphics. We will try to stay away from the well-known American pulp & book cover illustrations and instead will focus on the artwork from rather unlikely sources: Soviet & Eastern Bloc “popular tech & science”…
Roman Road Maps
They didn’t have a GPS system back in those days. BBC News link it is an intensely practical document, more like a plan of the London Underground than a map. “The red lines are the main roads. Every so often there is a little hook along the red lines which represents a rest stop –…