Slashdot Mirror

Concern about intermittent power outages is one example: http://www.sfreviews.net/2face...
"Set in roughly the mid-21st century, Two Faces chronicles the exploits of a team of scientists as they attempt to develop a computer capable of learning, of using the equivalent of human common sense in its decision-making and programming strategies. The world is by this time, of course, dominated by computer technology, and one such system already in place, responsible for running many of society's most important and necessary faculties both on Earth and in space, has nearly killed a construction crew on the moon through a decision that was unimpeachably logical but not very bright. But a new system, spearheaded by Dr. Raymond Dyer, happens to be in development, with vigorous testing being undertaken to perfect its learning capabilities, so that the computer will best approximate the way human beings learn from infancy how to function in the world around them through trial, error and experience.
    But Dyer is plagued with doubts. After championing the system, he feels horrendous guilt at the near-disaster on the moon and really begins to worry what might happen should the new system evolve faster than expected, with more distressing results. What would happen if it becomes truly self-aware, with the survival instincts of an actual life-form? And then, what would happen if it perceived the very humans that created it as a threat to its own continued existence? What if it couldn't be turned off? (Yes, this premise was also the basis for James Cameron's Terminator films.) Fortunately, a remarkable beta-test opportunity presents itself. A space station under construction will have this bold new supercomputer installed, and then it will be, in a manner of speaking, attacked; thus a closed society, a microcosm of Earth is in place with the computer allowed to do what it will to defend itself in a worst-case scenario, without putting the Earth itself at any risk. Beautiful, right? So the system, named Spartacus, is installed on the orbital space station Janus, and sure enough, before you can say "Windows 2000" Spartacus is outmaneuvering, outguessing, and staying several jumps ahead of Dyer and his team, with a learning curve that quickly becomes alarming -- and dangerous.
    Computers are Hogan's forte, and this cautionary tale -- written, incidentally, at a time when Radio Shack's TRS-80 was the best-known desktop home computer -- has a simple and difficult-to-argue message: humanity should not abdicate its responsibility to its own welfare simply because we can develop the technology to do so. ..."

Also, in Greg Bear's Slant, there was a toilet in a hotel room that provided an analysis of urine.

Well, that's almost certainly been true up to now (anybody for whom it wasn't true would have been smart to keep a very low profile). That may not always be true.

Old news, boss. See Two Faces of Tomorrow by James P. Hogan. This novel written in 1979 asked a more basic question: If a computer network became aware, can the plug still be pulled?

Well, lets see. What HAVE I done with my life?

I've never suckerpunched Charles Platt (nor anyone else, for that matter), never had three wives divorce me in a row, I have never lied continuously about the status of a anthology (I.E., The Last Dangerous Visions), I haven't thrown a temper tantrum in public (or private) for well over 50+ years (I'm 57 as I write this), I don't insult my fans by calling them smelly and unhygienic, I don't gleefully perpetuate the stereotype of the greedy Jew , "I don't take a piss without getting paid!", I don't blame the "amateurs" for the woes of the publishing trade. (See the aforementioned YouTube clip) Mr. Ellison forgets that he, too, was once an amateur. I don't pepper my speech with a constant stream of obscenities or vulgarities. I never groped Connie Willis' breast on stage at the Hugo Awards Ceremonies .

I could go on, but, well, you get the picture.

Mr. Ellison has proved himself, time and time again, to be a very petty little man, given to outbursts of temper and violence and obscenity. Certainly not the actions of a responsible adult of 75 years of age.

I, for one, don't see his actions as anything to "respect".

I don't get worked up about it - but I've read reviews of other books where they basically explain Scalzi's book in terms of which Heinlein that it matches.
 
This Zoe's Tale Review wonders if "...Scalzi has perfected some kind of occult ritual to allow the spirit of the late Grand Master to possess his body."
 
This Last Colony review says that it is really 2 books in one - one of which is The Tunnel in the Sky. Which I really can't agree with and think it is only the Heinlein tie in that made them go there.
 
So it's out there and I thought it was worth throwing in my thoughts on it - in case anyone had read those types of reviews and might appreciate a different opinion.

There were definitely scenes in Arthur C. Clarke's 'Ghost From the Grand Banks' in which smoking was being digitally edited out of old films, though I can't remember it it was in Snow Crash or not.

What I do remember, bizarrely, is that my copies of both of these books have very similar 1930s Art Deco-esque fonts on the covers:

http://www.secondlifecrew.be/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/snow_crash.jpg

http://www.sfreviews.net/ghostgrand_copy.jpg

Perhaps it was shot at by the Farside Cannon :)

http://www.sfreviews.net/farsidecannon.html

cz

It would have been a little more appropriate to christen it "Rama"..

the distopian view is that such beings would be ideal soldiers. Intellegent, but limited. Unlike Apes (i.e. Planet of the Apes) they are proven to be not so much inferior as less adaptable. Humans would be a few steps ahead of them at every turn. Even more ironic, in uniforms they would look exactly like the enemy in German Nazi propoganda posters depicting invading Russians. Instead of Jurassic Park we would be seeing Norman Spinrad's Iron Dream come to life.

"Yes, but what would be the point of writing a story where all the subjects are in the ship travelling near c?"

Funny you should say that. Poul Anderson wrote a very interesting novel about precisely that, Tau Zero.

It's no classic, but it gives a plausible method of space colonisation without hyperspace.

If people are interested in a fun SF book in which time travel is possible (Einstein, if you go faster than light this implies time travel is possible), and the reason why despite being this possible there is no actual time travel, read Singularity Sky by Charless Stross.

Start here.

Could be. We could either send a probe (called sita) to it or wait around and see if two others turn up...
(For those who have no idea what i am talking about : Rendezvous with Rama, classic sci-fi from Arthur C. Clarke. Review is Here )

One nautical mile is one second (1/60th degree) of declination at the equator.

Similarly you can tie the 360 degrees in a circle to the length of a year. Remember it was the "holy men" (and women in some cultures) who originally calculated all this. Their main charge was to determine when to plant crops and such.

Now if you want to talk about decimal circles then we have radians.

What we really need is a base PI system of counting! Then we can really blow stuff up!

Phil

Hasn't anyone at SETI read The Forge of God? We need to just STFU and listen, not broadcast where we are so the Destroyers can find us! (In a nutshell: a highly paranoid alien race listens for broadcasts from nascent technological civilizations and eradicates them before they can become a threat.)

Seriously, we have no idea of the mindset and capabilities of alien civilizations. The novel's viewpoint is arguable, but caution dictates that we determine the intentions of outsiders before we announce our presence (cf. American Indians vs. Europeans).

There is a book with a story very similar to what you describe, Tau Zero by Poul Anderson.

It tells us a tale of a ship speeding so very close to the speed of light time has basically stopped for them, and due to some accident, unable to decelarate...

Current mass calculations, AFAIK, seem to doom the universe to eternal expansion and inevitable thermal death instead of "the Big Crunch", though.