I very much enjoyed this piece by Bruce Sterling, titled Creation Science. Especially the bit on how scientists might react if AIs started doing better science than humans. One of those quirky Singularity-type moments where, if you think about it, sounds interesting.
Category: ASIDES
Makes me wanna read the new book
Over at Strange Horizons, an interview with Mark Budz by my Clarion West classmate Tristan Davenport.
BigHominid’s Mad, Man, Mad
For anyone doubting the truth of that statement, see his Konglish ravioli night post.
DataHand
I’m starting to think I should start a category on this blog for gadgets I’d like to have. Tobias S. Buckell blogged about keyboard problems and a very enticing solution in the DataHand ergonomic keyboard. Check it out.
Singularity! – A Tough Guide to the Rapture of the Nerds
So Charles Stross is also sometimes a funny man. Go and see. I especially enjoyed the AD&D-styled stats.
A nation of phone junkies…
Here’s an interesting article from December, probably blogged elsewhere, but which caught my attention. It’s titled Korea becoming a nation of phone junkies: South Korean teenagers are so attached to their mobile phones that some researchers are classifying them as ‘addicts’, according to recent reports. Almost a third are obsessed with their phones to the point that they sometimes imagine hearing them ringing when they are not. There’s more, including a student group campaigning for monthly voluntary phone-free days, in order to help people get people back in touch with other forms of social interaction. Kind of like how Adbusters …
The Lester Dent Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot
During Clarion West, the inimitable Shawn Scarber shared with us, his classmates, the wonderful reference source that should be available to all writers of genre fiction, especially those working in the short form — though the tips found within the guide may well work for longer works. Yes, my friends, it’s the The Lester Dent Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot. Brilliant.
Infinite monkey theorem?
You know that Infinite monkey theorem? The idea that an infinite amount of time at a keyboard would somehow eventually get a monkey producing Shakespeare’s complete works? Yeah, probably not. Why? This article in Wired News, linked at the Wikipedia entry above, has a good answer for it, but it basically boils down to a misunderstanding about the nature of animal mentality: Phillips said the experiment showed that monkeys “are not random generators. They’re more complex than that.
Just Like Paper, But Not
It’s too bad that all the toys I like are expensive. It’s nice to know they’ll be half the current price, or less, and much better, in a year or two.
RevolutionSF’s Clarion, Schmarion Contest
My Clarion Workshopmate Shawn posted about RevolutionSF’s Clarion, Schmarion: A Fiction Contest. Heh.