Slashdot Mirror

Greg Egan - best ideas ever. I'm currently re-re-reading Diaspora
Charles Stross - fun. I read Accelerando (free book!), then bought all his other stuff and wasn't disappointed.
Richard Morgan - really likes his Lone Genetically Modified Male protagonists, but luckily he does them well enough for it not to get old.
Alastair Reynolds - the Revelation Space universe is one of my favourites.
Iain (M.) Banks - The Culture novels are quite interesting, and his other books aren't bad either.

Honourable mentions:

Peter Watts - all his books appear to be online. Blindsight is very, very good, but I've not read much else from him yet.
Greg Bear - some of his older works are among my favourites. Queen of Angels, Slant (literally "/") and Moving Mars are one of my favourite trilogies. I'm behind on his newer stuff though, and his latest "terrorist thriller" makes me suspicious.

Greg Egan - best ideas ever. I'm currently re-re-reading Diaspora
Charles Stross - fun. I read Accelerando (free book!), then bought all his other stuff and wasn't disappointed.
Richard Morgan - really likes his Lone Genetically Modified Male protagonists, but luckily he does them well enough for it not to get old.
Alastair Reynolds - the Revelation Space universe is one of my favourites.
Iain (M.) Banks - The Culture novels are quite interesting, and his other books aren't bad either.

Honourable mentions:

Peter Watts - all his books appear to be online. Blindsight is very, very good, but I've not read much else from him yet.
Greg Bear - some of his older works are among my favourites. Queen of Angels, Slant (literally "/") and Moving Mars are one of my favourite trilogies. I'm behind on his newer stuff though, and his latest "terrorist thriller" makes me suspicious.

Dark, hard science fiction from that man. Check him out at http://www.rifters.com/

Starfish, Blindsight, and a few other titles, all with tons of hard science, all with good stories (and dark) to match.

We all know where this will lead us

"Two prototypes," Rowan continued. "Three, four billion years ago. Two competing models. One of them cornered the market, set the standard for everything from viruses up to giant sequoias. But the thing is, Yves, the winner wasn't necessarily the best product. It just got lucky somehow, got some early momentum. Like software, you know? The best programs never end up as industry standards."

(Watts also has made his 2006 stand-alone novel Blindsight available under CC. The reviews are right- this is one of the best hard SF books to come out this decade. "[he] has taken the core myths of the First Contact story and shaken them to pieces. The result is a shocking and mesmerizing performance, a tour-de-force of provocative and often alarming ideas. It is a rare novel that has the potential to set science fiction on an entirely new course." Makes a great gift for anyone who reads hard science fiction. (disclaimers- none, I don't know the guy, but I do want him able to afford to write much more like this.)

Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle, 1963. Ice 9 is the simplest of molecules which will out-crystallize / out-compete anything that life today uses.

Goldstein's worries are just Watts' B-life (or a slightly more complex Ice-9) plus the belief Goldstein can build it.

"Two prototypes," Rowan continued. "Three, four billion years ago. Two competing models. One of them cornered the market, set the standard for everything from viruses up to giant sequoias. But the thing is, Yves, the winner wasn't necessarily the best product. It just got lucky somehow, got some early momentum. Like software, you know? The best programs never end up as industry standards."

(Watts also has made his 2006 stand-alone novel Blindsight available under CC. The reviews are right- this is one of the best hard SF books to come out this decade. "[he] has taken the core myths of the First Contact story and shaken them to pieces. The result is a shocking and mesmerizing performance, a tour-de-force of provocative and often alarming ideas. It is a rare novel that has the potential to set science fiction on an entirely new course." Makes a great gift for anyone who reads hard science fiction. (disclaimers- none, I don't know the guy, but I do want him able to afford to write much more like this.)

Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle, 1963. Ice 9 is the simplest of molecules which will out-crystallize / out-compete anything that life today uses.

Goldstein's worries are just Watts' B-life (or a slightly more complex Ice-9) plus the belief Goldstein can build it.

"Two prototypes," Rowan continued. "Three, four billion years ago. Two competing models. One of them cornered the market, set the standard for everything from viruses up to giant sequoias. But the thing is, Yves, the winner wasn't necessarily the best product. It just got lucky somehow, got some early momentum. Like software, you know? The best programs never end up as industry standards."

(Watts also has made his 2006 stand-alone novel Blindsight available under CC. The reviews are right- this is one of the best hard SF books to come out this decade. "[he] has taken the core myths of the First Contact story and shaken them to pieces. The result is a shocking and mesmerizing performance, a tour-de-force of provocative and often alarming ideas. It is a rare novel that has the potential to set science fiction on an entirely new course." Makes a great gift for anyone who reads hard science fiction. (disclaimers- none, I don't know the guy, but I do want him able to afford to write much more like this.)

Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle, 1963. Ice 9 is the simplest of molecules which will out-crystallize / out-compete anything that life today uses.

Goldstein's worries are just Watts' B-life (or a slightly more complex Ice-9) plus the belief Goldstein can build it.

It's not evolution anymore than if some freak disease killed off all the green eyed people in the world.

That is evolution. If a freak disease that kills green eyed people kills all the green eyed people in the world, then no one in the remaining population will be vulnerable to the disease. As Peter Watts notes in this humorous presentation, evolution does not mean the "survival of the fittest". It is the "survival of the least inadequate".

Digitally anyway. His novel Maelstrom deals with artificial life developing from viral software . The first two books of his Rifters trilogy (Maelstrom being the second) are available for free here http://rifters.com/real/shorts.htm until they are reprinted this summer. Very, very good hard sf.

Snow Crash, especially the pizza delivery part with Y.T. pooning the cars (reminds me of Jet Set/Grind Radio) would look fucking amazing, along with the rest of the book.

I love dreaming of a SC film, and think I could do a really badass one, but StarCraft would be a little hard to do storywise (the story is there but having the characters interact to convey the story would be hard), and although the game is amazingly cool even years after, WAAAAY to much CG would be needed. 10 actors, actual models for maybe a few Terran vehicles and parts of a few Zerg, but CG all else... At worst is might look like a bad Aliens knockoff. I want a suit of Marine armor! Ghosts are badasses too. And Kerrigan is really hot. Okay, fanboy venting complete for that game!

I really liked the atmosphere in Tiberian Sun, and with a little work I'd like to see many of the ideas incorporated into a movie (the apocalyptic, dark, alien, gritty, near-future feel; CABAL, mutants, the Scrin ship, Ion storms, the space station, the cyborgs, the cool armor, etc.) even if it isn't actually a movie of the game.

Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds would own as a movie, but one movie wouldn't cut it. The entire series (four thick novels) would have to be done for any of it to make sense, and I am afraid of the size constraints like LOTR and (though I hate it I hear about it) Harry Potter.

It's not really SF, but the 1984 crossed with Lord of the Flies book Battle Royale by Koshun Takami is a really great read, and has already been made into a low-budget (i.e. bad) movie in Japan that is a cult favorite. Honestly, an Americanized version of this movie couldn't be worse, and could actually be really good, like the book (which doesn't feel weird for an American the way some Japanese films do).

Starfish by Peter Watts (available for until reprint here http://rifters.com/real/shorts.htm under CC license) could make a really interesting movie, but there is perhaps too much thought and too little dialogue to do without a little creativity or unconventionality. It also isn't really a book for everyone, especially kids. One reviewer called it "horrific porn". But hey, we're all into that kind of stuff. Right? Guys? Guys?

On a a couople of side notes: Hyperion and Dune are too awesome for film. I doubt that it can be done. I predict the Ender's Game movie will suck, and I dread its release. The Resident Evil games, all of them, could have been exactly the same but live action and with updated effects and fewer puzzles, and been awesome movies, and I suspect the Silent Hill series could be too. Valkyrie Profile could also be an awesome movie.

Neon Genesis Evangelion and End of Evangelion is the best anime of all time, and the one of the best SF of all time, and also one of if not the best film/tv series of any kind of all time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untitled_Evangelion_P roject is both insanely cool if done right (i.e. by the original director) because it will be great and everyone here in the US will finally know what I am talking about, but I also see that it has been floating around a while, and I have never seen that turn out well and the original director is working on something else right now, so I am VERY concerned.

I think I am forgetting something.

Peter Watts's Rifter trilogy will be of interest to anyone who finds this or toxoplasma or even just very well researched hard SF entertaining. Until his first two books resume printing, they are available on his website http://rifters.com/real/shorts.htm under the Creative Commons licencse. Enjoy!

The plot in The Terminator and The Matrix is only going a little further than what reality is probably already producing.

I think I get what you mean, but in the interest of humor: when was the last time a porno site popup killed you? For a more realistic bridge between far out sf and reality, read Peter Watts. The first two books in his Rifters trilogy are scheduled for reprint in 2007, and until then , he has made them available for download in PDF format on his website under the CC licencse http://rifters.com/real/shorts.htm

They're really good and very well researched. The part about viral software and malware is in the second book.

from one of my favorite authors, Peter Watts. He writes hard as hell sf, which includes behavioral modification in this manner. His first two novels are schedluled to be reprinted soon, but until then he has made them available for free in basic tect or pdf form, all downloadable, on his website http://rifters.com/ red the right hand column on the newscrawl section too, it's very much like /. in topics.

There are now three different proofs of the Theorem. All work by by exhaustion of a very large problem space. The original '77 proof is by Appel and Haken. A second one is by Seymour et al. The third one by Georges Gonthier is very new. It's the really interesting one in this discussion, because it is a totally formalized proof, built with the help of the Coq mechanical theorem prover.

The point is, IF you believe that the Coq software works correctly, then you can now be SURE about the Four Color Theorem. Before Gonthier, you had to proof-check hudreds of pages, and debug and run some quite complicated programs to validate the proof. Seymour et al. did their own proof partly because this was easier than verifying Appel and Haken's very complicated one.

There is a very nice article about this here.

Very very very few people belive that the Earth ... [sic] revolves around the sun.

Tell that to Galileo.

BTW, 25% of the American public currently thinks that the sun goes around the earth. Quite an appalling figure. Refference.

Your point is valid, but fails when it applies to percentages of the population.

False. You are promoting endless Galileo fisacos.

How is percentage of the population relevant to whether something is or is not good science? How is it relevant to a proper science education? The checkout girl at your local Wal-Mart does not get to vote on relativity or quantum mechanics or evolution. Not unless she's got an extensive education in that specific field and has a laboratory in her basment and not unless she has a scientific argument to make and that argument is subject to expert critical review. Hell, she could even skip the extensive education in the field and the laboratory in her basement and still potentially make a valid contribution, but her arguments still has has to pass expert scientific critical review.

His statement was that he was going to teach us the theory of evolution and went on to explain how he was teaching that, but not creationism, because it was supported by evidence. He then went on to say that he wanst requiring us to belive it, only to know what the theory was, and that he wouldnt think less of any of us for not believing a word he said.

Then he's a lousy science teacher and poisoning science education.

The problem is not that the statements are false, the problem is that the statements are missleading and presented in a manner corrosive of good science. The problem is that it is absolutely wrong and miseducation to tell students that those statements apply to evolution. They do not. They apply to SCIENCE. A statement of that general concept would be an excellect point to make in the foundation of an entire science education.

He is ruining science education by explicitly targeting and discrediting a single arbitrary field of science, and for doing so (directly or indirectly) on a strictly religious basis. He is giving the impression that one particular field of science is somehow different than any other area of science. He's giving the very harmful education that public oppinion or religious faith is somehow relevant to science. He is also furthing the very destructive view that parts of science are somehow anti-religion.

If a band of Romanian Gypsies caused some uproar over astronomy being anti-astrology, should science teachers insert a special disclaimer targeting astronomy to be discredited, that astronomy is somehow different or lesser than any the rest of science? It would be nothing but FUD.

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I second the view that Digital Fortress is a lame piece of crap. Dan Brown did not do even the most basic research before writing Digital Fortress. Bruce Schneier's book Applied Cryptography has been around a long time. Even if you don't understand the C code and the mathematics, you can get a pretty good picture of why some algorithms are unbreakable, in practice. But Brown does not seem to have read anything about cryptography. He simply waves his hands and writes "quantum computing". He might as well have written "magic happens".

Now what would have been interesting would be to speculate that the NSA actually did have quantum computing. Then the interesting plot theme would be how do you keep something like that secret. But such plot complexity is not for Dan Brown.

As other Slashdotters have noted, Brown's characters are cardboard and his writing is poor. So while one might forgive someone for technical mistakes if the plot and writing were good, the combination of mediocre writing and technical howlers is pretty obnoxious.

If you want a writer who is not a specialist in computer science but gets the details right and even provides interesting insight, try Peter Watts the author of Starfish and Maelstrom.

Watts is a Phd marine biologist, so he's definitely a bright guy. So perhaps he's in a different league than Dan Brown. Watts has definitely done his research and it shows in his interesting observations about neural nets.

Watts' characters are complex and his plots are interesting, if dark. (OK, so I should probably submit a book review - Watts' has a new book coming out this year and I'll do it when the book appears, since Watts' is under appreciated)

I just finished reading a book called _Starfish_ by Peter Watts, and for those interested, it's about a group of cybernetically modified folks who live at these depths tending to generating equipment that harvests energy from the thermal vents. (OK, it's more exciting than I make it out, but that's why I read instead of write, right?)

I'm now reading the sequel _Maelstrom_. I recommend both these books (tho I'm not quite through with the 2d yet).

In any event, the science in these books is very interesting and accurate AFAIK. A bit cyberpunk, a bit Jules Verne, all in all worth the read, IMHO.

Deadly microbe found in a ocean vent; said microbe that assimilates sulfur more rapidly than most things, screwing with human metabolism and killing the host. Humans attempt to nuke the vent. Chaos ensues.

Two fun books, really well written. Here's a link to an annoying, sound filled, book-specific site if you're really interested. Maelstrom to me is much more interesting...

The subject of fitness in the article reminds me of a book called "Starfish" by Peter Watts. (I recommend it highly in my own review of it, BTW).

In it, a type of biological computer has been created, and does stuff integral to the plot. In one sidenote I recall, someone brings up the fact that you don't really know why these types of computers do something, just that they do it. The person talks about some event in a subway, where the system was supposed to run the ventilation fans when trains arrived. It worked, so everyone was happy... until some vandals smashed a clock that was visible to the system through a security camera. The fans weren't being run by a schedule, or by a camera detecting the train, it was being run by the camera seeing the pattern on the clock. So then the people on the train suffocate.

I don't think I would ever feel comfortable with one of these types of computers, unless it was so highly evolved as to be able to tell someone what it was doing and why.