Slashdot Mirror

Please see this one.

Apparently, a pair of ostriches. But.... maybe not.

We are being surveyed EVEN AS WE SPEAK!

For example

What turns on a kryptonian? What arouses Kal-El's mating urge? Did kryptonian women carry some subtle mating cue at appropriate times of the year? Whatever it is, Lois Lane probably didn't have it. We may speculate that she smells wrong, less like a kryptonian woman than like a terrestrial monkey.

Can human breed with kryptonian? Do we even use the same genetic code? On the face of it, LL could more easily breed with an ear of corn than with Kal-El. But coincidence does happen. If the genes match...

Larry Niven dealt with a lot of this an essay about why Superman is always free on Saturday night.

It deals more with biology and psychology, but there's a lot of physics involved, too.

Larry Niven described the downfall of the exalted Ringworld Engineers, and the decay of their cosmic triumph, the Ringworld, due to a GM bacterium which ate their superconducting plastic wiring. Perhaps we're finally getting powerful enough to scare the Puppeteers! Kzinti will be right around the corner.

or at least virtual flashcrowds - that's what we are. Created by anything with a high-traffic audience and an "interesting" link to a web-site that's the equivalent of a pretty but weak wooden bridge; we're the juggernaut that decides to park on it to catch the view.

that flashcrowd idea - Larry Niven, 1971 (1973?) see:

• Wikipedia definition dating it to 1973
• Word Spy pointing to 1971
• and a link to larryniven.org which points the flash crowd finger back at slashdot...

Of course, the Earth has been trapping energy from the Sun for millennia (megennia? gigennia? :), in organic systems and their legacy: petrochemicals. We've been releasing it, mostly by burning (trees, oil, coal, etc), for a tiny fraction of that time. Some of that energy is transferred the way we want it, like moving cars through streets, moving electrons through wires, moving photons to our eyes and antennae, pushing concrete into forms. Most is transferred into heat, the disorganized bouncing of atoms, the inefficiency of our energy processing. But the Earth also radiates that heat out into space, boosting the infrared band of our albedo. Our warming problem, at our scale of energy processing, comes from pollution increasing the infrared insulation of our atmosphere, preventing its disposal as albedo. Replacing burning with solar wind power would cut that pollution right down, so the Earth could better maintain its heat balance. Orbital mirrors are extremely wasteful, and kinda stupid for night sleepers (nonhumans among them). An orbital laser, interlocked with a floating ocean platform, has been studied for decades; I first saw a presentation in 1990 by Arthur P. Little.

Solar wind power would move us into a much larger scale of heat transferrence. The Earth might not be able to balance such an increase, even with clearer skies. Larry Niven described how aliens, the Puppeteers, coped with the heat pollution of their planet in his novel Ringworld. Switching to solar wind power would probably buy us time to harness more entropic power sources, like accumulated waste heat in the oceans/atmosphere.

I don't pretend to know how to escape the thermodynamics of inevitably increasing entropy. But solar wind power could be a great investment in practically using energy that currently is merely wasted, instead of how we currently misuse energy that is practically wasting *us*.

Of course, the Earth has been trapping energy from the Sun for millennia (megennia? gigennia? :), in organic systems and their legacy: petrochemicals. We've been releasing it, mostly by burning (trees, oil, coal, etc), for a tiny fraction of that time. Some of that energy is transferred the way we want it, like moving cars through streets, moving electrons through wires, moving photons to our eyes and antennae, pushing concrete into forms. Most is transferred into heat, the disorganized bouncing of atoms, the inefficiency of our energy processing. But the Earth also radiates that heat out into space, boosting the infrared band of our albedo. Our warming problem, at our scale of energy processing, comes from pollution increasing the infrared insulation of our atmosphere, preventing its disposal as albedo. Replacing burning with solar wind power would cut that pollution right down, so the Earth could better maintain its heat balance. Orbital mirrors are extremely wasteful, and kinda stupid for night sleepers (nonhumans among them). An orbital laser, interlocked with a floating ocean platform, has been studied for decades; I first saw a presentation in 1990 by Arthur P. Little.

Solar wind power would move us into a much larger scale of heat transferrence. The Earth might not be able to balance such an increase, even with clearer skies. Larry Niven described how aliens, the Puppeteers, coped with the heat pollution of their planet in his novel Ringworld. Switching to solar wind power would probably buy us time to harness more entropic power sources, like accumulated waste heat in the oceans/atmosphere.

I don't pretend to know how to escape the thermodynamics of inevitably increasing entropy. But solar wind power could be a great investment in practically using energy that currently is merely wasted, instead of how we currently misuse energy that is practically wasting *us*.

"See, Vern? I's told yas!"

How do you get rid of nasty infections? Autoclave! Heat things up enough to smoke out all those nasty hoomins and things can get back to normal around here.

As for volcanos, it looks like the production of CO/CO2 in eruptions can have an effect on global warming. It turns out, however, that the ash/SO2 released into the atmosphere has a cooling effect. It also helps scatter sunlight, allowing for more robust tree growth which leads to more carbon being taken out of the atmosphere.

So, all we need to happen is for the Yellowstone (NetBSD) volcano to erupt (supposed to be violent enough to wipe out hoomanity) and fill the skys with enough ash and SO2 to bring on Fimbulwinter to slow down global warming. Or have a big rock smack into the Indian Ocean.

Read Niven's A World Out Of Time (multiple meanings in the title) for a similar idea. It's one if his first "State" books.

The space elevator could do double duty as the worlds longest (and thinnest) supercomputer?


I'm going to regret this, but...

...imagine a Beowulf Shaeffer cluster of these.

If you actually believe that tripe, then I suggest you read "Cloak of Anarchy" by Larry Niven. And yes, it's posted with permission from Mr. Niven.

Anarchy isn't freedom, and that's what you're advocating. That or total isolation from all other human beings. Take your pick.

Oh, no! The Pak will take over! ... eventually

Authors: Niven (lots of aliens, the closest to anthropomorphic is the K'zinti, a warrier cat race, and quite a few very non-human races, such as the Outsiders (apparently a living form of liquid helium) and the Pierson's Puppeteers), Vinge's "A Fire in the Sky" (incredible handling of sentient communal mind organisms (!)) and "A Deepness in the Sky" (cool but somewhat less incredible handling of spider-like aliens in a very unusual environment, complete with cultural implications). You might be surprised but some of the earlier Star trek novels are pretty good, before Berman. (Pick up "Spock's World" if you ever see it; there are as many conceptions of Vulcans as there are Star Trek writers, as Enterprise demonstrates, but that's the best.)

That's a start.

Basically the "hard core" sci-fi. I don't read new books like I used to (new book prices outgrew my essentially shrinking entertainment budget, as I moved from living w/ my parents in HS (where money isn't allocated for "food") to independent living), but my impression is they don't publish as much as they used to. Used book stores are a good resource for this.

Borrowing from Sci Fi Lit, Larry Niven's Protectors were a lot more intelligent than us 'breeders', but between their biological imperatives, and their extreme ability to extrapolate chains of events from current data, they were said to have little free will.

So at least to another Protector with the same data, they would be very predictable indeed. Just a thought experiment, but it makes sense to me...

I didn't know either, but if you click the link to the old slashdot story it has a link to more info about him.

I am very curious, were you involved in it or was the concept flat out stolen?

More info here: http://www.larryniven.org/kzin/star_trek_vs_kzinti .htm

http://www.larryniven.org/chatlogs/chat060402.htm

Search for Halo. The gist is that Microsoft sent him an Xbox and a copy of Halo, hoping he would write a Halo novel.

Follow up question: if you were to write a similar article based on one of the recent or upcoming movie superheroes (Hulk, Daredevil, Spiderman, X-Men, etc.), who would it be?

With all the possiblities for Known Space movies and television programs, especially the Man/Kzin Wars, why have none been made?

The only show episode to incorporate your vision I know of was The Slaver Weapon in the Star Trek Animated Series. It was based on your short story, The Soft Weapon.

Have stories been optioned and live in development limbo?

Apparently a Ringworld movie is in development, though nothing has been heard about it since the end of 2001.

Haven't seen a plug yet for the great Niven / Pournelle novel "The Mote in God's Eye" and its sequel "The Gripping Hand." VERY good stories, believable technology, a well-crafted universe, and some darn kooky aliens.

It's a refreshing switch from mainstream SF - not that there is anything particularly wrong with Asimov, Clarke, et. al. - although Niven used to be considered mainstream (Ringworld, "Known Space," etc.) It is blissfully free from techno-babble, unlike our beloved ST/ST:TNG series and its sequels. For those who know Niven, he wrote some pretty campy dated SF as well - take it for what it's worth.

Nevertheless, go to the "Mote" and see for yourself. It's worth the trip.

Nope. I did get the citation wrong, though. It's not included in All the Myriad Ways; it's in Limits. And it actually carries a subtitle: "Yet Another Modest Proposal: The Roentgen Standard."

It's unfortunately not available on the web, but Larry has given his permission for "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" to be published here. It's great. And where else can you find the unforgettable passage, "But with kryptonian muscles behind it, Kal-El's semen would emerge with the muzzle velocity of a machine gun bullet."

Well, eventually we'll cover every science fiction and convert them to science fact. This one strongly brings to mind The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton by Larry Niven.

Bonus reading: Artificial Arm stories

Let's stop thinking small. Bring on the Lensman!

As for the Asimov quote, he's ha[r]dly pure. The premise of humans originating from aliens (the Pak, in his Known Space books) is about as "illogical" as can be. But he's trying to write SF, and so that's what it is.

It was Niven, not Asimov, who gave us "Known Space." I'm trying to think of an example from Asimov that might make your point, but nothing's coming to me at the moment.

Regardless, I agree that authors should be able to employ a McGuffin here and there without losing their "Certified SF" seal of approval. It should be done well, and sparingly, however. I've read a number of novels where the authors took things too far and completely lost my interest/respect because of their illogical and impossible devices. Suspension of disbelief is something that you have to earn, not expect, from your reader, IMHO.

Such sources will undoubtedly come in handy when tracking T3, given how long it's been in the rumor mill.

The Ringworld movie is in preproduction. Further details available here.