Pick Science Fiction that involves technology that already exists, but right now isn't being used because of, um, budget constraints or other reasons (ethical, practical, whatever).
My point is that it is still speculative. Since the technology doesn't exist yet, we do not exactly know what will happen. That's why it's called fiction. Getting humans to mars is one example. There are dozens of ways it could be done. It could be millions of unforeseen incidents. Plenty of room for interesting stories to develop, you could focus on the astronauts experiences, the political consequences, the team developing the hardware, etc.. But it's still speculation and conjecture, i.e. fiction! And if we ever go to mars, it's probably not going to happen the same way as in the story.
The most famous book about surveillance societies is 1984. In some ways, it was a clear miss. In other ways it was scarily accurate. It was still speculation, even more so at the time it was written. A similar story today, would still be speculation. We do not know how future surveillance technologies will develop. Sure, we believe we know about CCTV face-recognition, rfid chips implanted under the skin, voice recognition, voice->text translation, pattern matching, etc... but anything we take for granted today, can be wrong. In science fiction movies from the 1950s, the space pirates would calculate their coordinates using slide rules before entering them into the mainframe (and flying off in their flying car to fight emperor Ming).
And we do not know the consequences of genetic tampering we do. That's why there are people against it. You can speculate about the wonderful things you'd be able to create, the terrible diseases you can create, the ecosystems you destroy, and so on, but it's still speculation. Jurassic Park is somewhat believable, but it's still speculation. The long-term effects of such a creation, even more so.
If you want a scientifically accurate book, you know where to find it. If you want a work of fiction, you also know where to find it.
Science fiction is first and foremost fiction. The point of science fiction is to speculate about the future, and that nearly always involves technology that is not invented yet, and might never be invented, such as interstellar travel, fusion energy, real artificial intelligence, lightsabres, human cloning, rampant genetic engineering, force-fields, wormholes, nanotechnology, etc. The only exception to this is if the story is about a society after the fall of civilization (i.e. post-cataclysmic, due to nuclear war, overpopulation, pollution, etc...), and it's mostly about vikings riding Harley-Davidson motorbikes raiding nearby villages for women and booze, or something like that (see also Kevin Costners Waterworld).
Even fiction that is not set in the future, tends to include speculative technologies and methods. Just look at CSI, James Bond, etc... If a book does not contain speculative science, chances are that it will not contain any science at all. It will be about other things, such as people, love, crime, war, or something like that.
If what you are after is something that is scientifically accurate and entertaining, but not necessarily fiction, I would introduce them to Richard Feynman. (I'm sure there are other good authors, e.g. Stephen Hawking has a good reputation, but he talks about stuff so far above our heads that it's hard to gain any understanding from it). (I realize none of these authors excel in biology. So maybe you should ask somebody else for suggestions there...)
In short: just forget about it. You won't find a fiction book that teaches you science, any more than you will find a science book with a good plot. The best you can hope for is a fiction book that inspires you about the possibilities of science, and a science book that is both entertaining and correct.
Exactly. The only successful huge non-developer-oriented free software projects I know of that exists, is openoffice and firefox, and both are sponsored so heavily by corporations that it's more like charity than anything resembling a hobby project or a full-blown bazaar development model.
There has been cases of a collective of users buying full rights to finished software from the company that owns it (e.g. blender), but so far, nobody has worked out how to do this for software not yet written. The potential is there, as there are plenty of people who would pay in advance for WHATEVER to be written, and plenty of developers who would be more than willing to work on WHATEVER for lower salary than they could get developing proprietary software, but the devil is in the details.
My guess is that such a project could work, if it had the right leader. However, that leader would need to have an exceptional combination of technical skills (specifications, overall design), and people skills (satisfying both users/funders and developers). In the corporate world, we know how to do it, but for free software, this is completely uncharted territory.
You will not become famous. (you've heard of Bill Gates, Dennis Ritchie and Larry Wall, but who created Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange?)
It's a huge effort. (it needs to be feature complete before people will even consider to take it halfway seriously)
It doesn't scratch an itch I have (I want fifteen new compilers to play with much more than I want a boring groupware app, it's other users who want that, perhaps not even running linux)
I'm sure this can be explained right on the page you order from. E.g. with text like:
Note: Dell doesn't sell or support openoffice, as it can be downloaded freely from http://www.openoffice.org./ However, by ordering it here, it will come preinstalled on your computer, configured for the same language as your operating system
If the TV-station idiot consumer report guy doesn't get that, I'm sure some lawyers will.
Open office would be like windows, something dell provides and thus their responsibility.
Are you trying to tell me that Dell takes responsibility for Windows. Last time I checked, even Microsoft wouldn't take responsibility for that! Look at the EULA...
2. The source is the major cost. Clearly the FTP server is not free, the bandwidth is not free some one needs to reply to the email address.
Look, Dell is huge. Running an FTP-site is something an individual like you and me can afford. In no way it will be a "major cost" for Dell. Also, xxx@dell.com wouldn't have to be an actual person. Ever heard of programs responding to email?
The thus it will cost dell money to include open office with no measurable increase in revenue because of the inclusion of open office.
Good point. The only way for Dell to make money from openoffice, is if it's going to get Dell more customers. By the way, that's why Dell asks what the customers want.
Last time I heard, Mensa was an organization for people with high IQ. Now, the general idea behind IQ-tests is that it is a way to measure your intelligence, an inborn ability that (at least in theory) cannot be improved. I fail to see how this is different from "not being sufficiently blue blooded (or some other similar BS)".
(Of course IQ-test results can be improved somewhat by education, experience in analytical thinking, and doing lots of similar puzzles as you'll find in the tests. That doesn't mean that IQ is an arbitrary measure, and someone who gets approved by Mensa is still going to be one that is born with far above average intelligence, even though the tests can be fooled to some degree. In no way is membership based on IQ a meritocracy).
Now, I'm not against Mensa as such. If people wants to have organizations that are women only, dwarfs only, swiss only, or high intelligence only, that's their decision. Just don't claim it's a meritocracy.
Which studies? How are they confirming "it happens"? What is the "it" they are confirming?
I'm sorry, but if you want to compare the top scientists of this world with a bunch of self-deceiving charlatans and quacks, and fail to find any difference, maybe it's you that need work, and not the world.
No, it's not a typo. Although I would probably say even older. The old telescopes did much the same as new telescopes. They would allow a viewer to put his eye close to the ocular, and through it spot distant objects enlarged through the combination of lenses and/or mirrors.
People like you want to stop debating, yet you come out with ludicrous bullshit like the above. You cannot expect people to take your side seriously
People like me? My side? What the fuck are you raving about? Does that put you in the "I'd rather get my facts from politicians and multinational corporations PR-departments than scientists"-side?
Besides, I'm all for debating. At least when there is something to debate. We can debate national spending, or whether it's fun to go to disneyland. But debating facts is beyond silly. Rocks don't stop falling down, even if it was what the winning part in an argument argued. And even if the greedy multinational corporation-side was winning (which isn't that unlikely), that doesn't mean that global warming will go away, or that smoking is safe.
But sure, if you think you have something to contribute, in the form of an argument that can convince the researchers working on this (NOT the public), then by all means, go ahead. The researchers might be wrong, but so far, I'd rather put my money on science than politics when it comes to facts.
when you can't even agree if the warming will be half a degree or so freaking large it causes flaming hurricanes.
Look:
Nobody is seriusly suggesting that the earth will be a flaming fireball. It was a rhetorical device.
If somebody holds your head under water, and tell you that you will most likely die from drowning in 3-10 minutes, you will stop worrying because they can't put up an exact number?
When it comes to telco's in the US, you can never compare what the rest of the world is doing and think it is simple to do in the US. It's exponentially more difficult as the land size/population increases.
Arguably, the rest of the world has more land size/population than the US. So your argument fails right there. Then again, I've never had any trouble using my GSM phone when I've travelled to USA. On the other hand, I don't know what all these other TLAs you write about mean either.
Here I hoped they would have created the most secure harddrive in the world, one who withstand earthquakes, floods, car collisions, and 50+ years of continuous use. And then it turns out that it's just a layer of crypto.
How boring, we can do that in software already....
Saying "we will not debate this" accomplishes nothing. All science is up for debate. If the science is solid, it will withstand all criticisms, no matter how ludicrous.
Sadly, no. The technical background needed to contribute in the debate around global warming/climate change is far beyond the average person (or slashdotter). That debate should be carried out among the scientists working in that field. And they have. And among those scientists, the winning theory is that global warming is real.
This doesn't mean that there doesn't exist scientists with dissenting views around global warming. However, most of those scientists are not working in that field, and should therefore not be considered experts. Then again, some do. But it's very rare. So far, I've only heard of one.
The trouble with "bringing up for debate" a topic that the scientists have already discussed, researched, and agreed upon some form of concensus about, is that it is far too technical for us to have a meaningful debate about it, and we can therefore be fooled by people with other agendas than getting the truth out.
The scientists working on this are mostly interested in the truth. The politicians, multinational corporations, etc..., might sound convincing, but their agenda is different. They aren't necessarily interested in the truth, what they want is more power/money for themselves (read: tobacco-science).
Another factor that's involved is that of our human need for "feeling good". Most people want to feel good about themselves, which explains why we all to some degree are guilty of wishful thinking. We want to believe the earth is healthy, to believe or current economic growth is sustainable, etc... If the facts doesn't fit, we invent new ones, or make up our own stories to explain why we have those beliefs (read: conspiracy-theories, superstition, religious beliefs, intelligent design, etc...).
Sure, when the earth is a 300-degree spinning fireball with flaming hurricanes covering every part of the surface, the science will have withstood all criticisms, and the debate will be over. In the meantime, I would suggest that if you are interested in truth, you go to science. If you are interested in what to do about it, you go to politics. If you let politicians tell you what they want you to believe is true, and ask scientists to do something about it, you are going the wrong route.
Ok, so back in 1810 when you graduated from college, maybe $75 was a lot of money.
Today, $75 buys you either: rent for a week, two books, one night out, or food for almost a week. You get $75 by either saving it up, or simply by working one extra nightshift at your part-time student job.
Any student can afford $75. Of course every student also has better things (beer) to do with their money than to give them to software companies, but sure as hell, they can afford it.
That's because you haven't graduated from kindergarten yet. Once you do, you will see that people around you are learning to spell, as well as use a computer.
Losses are significantly reduced by any insulating clothing worn. Even your standard shirt and pants provides fairly decent insulation. In the work suits worn on the Battlestar Galactica episode, the characters would have been more than protected.
Most insulative materials (such as clothing, blankets, mineral wool, etc) work by trapping air. If there's a vacuum, there's no air to trap, so I doubt normal clothing would insulate much.
On the other hand, if there's a vacuum, you don't need that kind of insulation, because you're not loosing heat through conduction anyway. A "space blanket" might help retain radiative heat, though, so please bring your tinfoil hat if you're ever worried about freezing to death in vacuum.
The punching bag is much lighter than you, so the force in the punch will move it forward much faster than it will move you backwards.
In a correctly done punch you will start the movement at your feet and accelerate your hips/body as well as your fist toward the target. This means that instead of you being moved backwards by the impact, the impact will stop (some of) your forward movement.
In an incorrectly done punch, it will be only your fist and the punching ball that collides (not you or your body weight behind it). This is insufficient force/momentum to move your body in any significant way (or do any damage to an opponent in a fight)
Apart from the fact that no technical details are described about this new technology, and that "gears" makes no sense at all in a rocket, and thus the comparison got tiring even the first time they used it, the authors of the article couldn't even make up their mind about what this invention is intended for. In the heading they talk about rockets for launching satellites, but everywhere else in the article, they talk about "satellite engines" used in orbit, which are apparently some form of improved ion-drive, completely useless for launch vehicles.
This is just silly. To illustrate how silly it is, we could just as well have an article about how a new toaster will use multiple stages to toast, just like rocket engines have multiple stages to orbit. This can potentially lead to up to 40% reduced cost of toasting toast, and potentially, making toast in deep space more of a reality, as well as in other energy-starved places. Then we can include a drawing of a hairdryer to "explain" it, and continue to explain that while commercial applications are a few years off, the new toaster will soon be ready to used for military infrared signalling.
You mean the people behind companies doing consumer surveys don't know basic statistics? This makes no sense. Sure, I will assume that such companies (as any other company) will sell you utter crap compared to what their sales brochure says, but that they deliberately introduce statistical errors for no good reason at all is a bit hard to swallow. Please explain.
Uhm, pair programming doesn't mean that both programmers need to actively modify the same file at the same time. If you have to do that, and you haven't got access to SubEthaEdit, I believe your biggest problem is not that you don't have access to SubEthaEdit, it's that you have failed to modularize, and that you have failed to cooperate.
Now don't get me wrong, I think this is funky, nifty, cool, and all that too! But for actual work (not technology demonstrations), and programming in particular, I believe you will have more success by just agreeing beforehand who does what, and/or manually merging the few conflicts you have.
90% of business travel is going to be virtual within the decade.
It's funny. I don't think that back when the telephone was invented, people started talking about "virtual business travel" instead of phone calls. Having picture in addition to sound on a phone (or "instant messaging program") isn't that much of a revolution that it makes sense to call it "virtual travel". It's still a "phone call", or if more than two persons are involved, maybe a "videoconference".
IMHO, "virtual travel" would at the very least involve a full virtual reality immersion, although I still prefer to call that VR, not "virtual travel". Perhaps a robot projecting your holographic image at the other end, and recording data for your full virtual reality immersion at your end would be a better definition of "virtual travel". That way, you could visit and interact with real places, not just imagined ones, which is kind of what "travel" is defined as.
Slashdot Mirror
My point is that it is still speculative. Since the technology doesn't exist yet, we do not exactly know what will happen. That's why it's called fiction. Getting humans to mars is one example. There are dozens of ways it could be done. It could be millions of unforeseen incidents. Plenty of room for interesting stories to develop, you could focus on the astronauts experiences, the political consequences, the team developing the hardware, etc.. But it's still speculation and conjecture, i.e. fiction! And if we ever go to mars, it's probably not going to happen the same way as in the story.
The most famous book about surveillance societies is 1984. In some ways, it was a clear miss. In other ways it was scarily accurate. It was still speculation, even more so at the time it was written. A similar story today, would still be speculation. We do not know how future surveillance technologies will develop. Sure, we believe we know about CCTV face-recognition, rfid chips implanted under the skin, voice recognition, voice->text translation, pattern matching, etc... but anything we take for granted today, can be wrong. In science fiction movies from the 1950s, the space pirates would calculate their coordinates using slide rules before entering them into the mainframe (and flying off in their flying car to fight emperor Ming).
And we do not know the consequences of genetic tampering we do. That's why there are people against it. You can speculate about the wonderful things you'd be able to create, the terrible diseases you can create, the ecosystems you destroy, and so on, but it's still speculation. Jurassic Park is somewhat believable, but it's still speculation. The long-term effects of such a creation, even more so.
Get my point?
If you want a scientifically accurate book, you know where to find it. If you want a work of fiction, you also know where to find it.
Science fiction is first and foremost fiction. The point of science fiction is to speculate about the future, and that nearly always involves technology that is not invented yet, and might never be invented, such as interstellar travel, fusion energy, real artificial intelligence, lightsabres, human cloning, rampant genetic engineering, force-fields, wormholes, nanotechnology, etc. The only exception to this is if the story is about a society after the fall of civilization (i.e. post-cataclysmic, due to nuclear war, overpopulation, pollution, etc...), and it's mostly about vikings riding Harley-Davidson motorbikes raiding nearby villages for women and booze, or something like that (see also Kevin Costners Waterworld).
Even fiction that is not set in the future, tends to include speculative technologies and methods. Just look at CSI, James Bond, etc... If a book does not contain speculative science, chances are that it will not contain any science at all. It will be about other things, such as people, love, crime, war, or something like that.
If what you are after is something that is scientifically accurate and entertaining, but not necessarily fiction, I would introduce them to Richard Feynman. (I'm sure there are other good authors, e.g. Stephen Hawking has a good reputation, but he talks about stuff so far above our heads that it's hard to gain any understanding from it). (I realize none of these authors excel in biology. So maybe you should ask somebody else for suggestions there...)
In short: just forget about it. You won't find a fiction book that teaches you science, any more than you will find a science book with a good plot. The best you can hope for is a fiction book that inspires you about the possibilities of science, and a science book that is both entertaining and correct.
This is Circus.
Exactly. The only successful huge non-developer-oriented free software projects I know of that exists, is openoffice and firefox, and both are sponsored so heavily by corporations that it's more like charity than anything resembling a hobby project or a full-blown bazaar development model.
There has been cases of a collective of users buying full rights to finished software from the company that owns it (e.g. blender), but so far, nobody has worked out how to do this for software not yet written. The potential is there, as there are plenty of people who would pay in advance for WHATEVER to be written, and plenty of developers who would be more than willing to work on WHATEVER for lower salary than they could get developing proprietary software, but the devil is in the details.
My guess is that such a project could work, if it had the right leader. However, that leader would need to have an exceptional combination of technical skills (specifications, overall design), and people skills (satisfying both users/funders and developers). In the corporate world, we know how to do it, but for free software, this is completely uncharted territory.
It's not that hard, it's just that
I'm sure this can be explained right on the page you order from. E.g. with text like:
Note: Dell doesn't sell or support openoffice, as it can be downloaded freely from http://www.openoffice.org./ However, by ordering it here, it will come preinstalled on your computer, configured for the same language as your operating system
If the TV-station idiot consumer report guy doesn't get that, I'm sure some lawyers will.
Are you trying to tell me that Dell takes responsibility for Windows. Last time I checked, even Microsoft wouldn't take responsibility for that! Look at the EULA...
Look, Dell is huge. Running an FTP-site is something an individual like you and me can afford. In no way it will be a "major cost" for Dell. Also, xxx@dell.com wouldn't have to be an actual person. Ever heard of programs responding to email?
Good point. The only way for Dell to make money from openoffice, is if it's going to get Dell more customers. By the way, that's why Dell asks what the customers want.
Last time I heard, Mensa was an organization for people with high IQ. Now, the general idea behind IQ-tests is that it is a way to measure your intelligence, an inborn ability that (at least in theory) cannot be improved. I fail to see how this is different from "not being sufficiently blue blooded (or some other similar BS)".
(Of course IQ-test results can be improved somewhat by education, experience in analytical thinking, and doing lots of similar puzzles as you'll find in the tests. That doesn't mean that IQ is an arbitrary measure, and someone who gets approved by Mensa is still going to be one that is born with far above average intelligence, even though the tests can be fooled to some degree. In no way is membership based on IQ a meritocracy).
Now, I'm not against Mensa as such. If people wants to have organizations that are women only, dwarfs only, swiss only, or high intelligence only, that's their decision. Just don't claim it's a meritocracy.
Wow, viacom can be bought in a hostile takeover for only a little bit more than a thousandth of its worth. I wonder why nobody has done it yet!
Which studies? How are they confirming "it happens"? What is the "it" they are confirming?
I'm sorry, but if you want to compare the top scientists of this world with a bunch of self-deceiving charlatans and quacks, and fail to find any difference, maybe it's you that need work, and not the world.
No, it's not a typo. Although I would probably say even older. The old telescopes did much the same as new telescopes. They would allow a viewer to put his eye close to the ocular, and through it spot distant objects enlarged through the combination of lenses and/or mirrors.
People like me? My side? What the fuck are you raving about? Does that put you in the "I'd rather get my facts from politicians and multinational corporations PR-departments than scientists"-side?
Besides, I'm all for debating. At least when there is something to debate. We can debate national spending, or whether it's fun to go to disneyland. But debating facts is beyond silly. Rocks don't stop falling down, even if it was what the winning part in an argument argued. And even if the greedy multinational corporation-side was winning (which isn't that unlikely), that doesn't mean that global warming will go away, or that smoking is safe.
But sure, if you think you have something to contribute, in the form of an argument that can convince the researchers working on this (NOT the public), then by all means, go ahead. The researchers might be wrong, but so far, I'd rather put my money on science than politics when it comes to facts.
Look:
Arguably, the rest of the world has more land size/population than the US. So your argument fails right there. Then again, I've never had any trouble using my GSM phone when I've travelled to USA. On the other hand, I don't know what all these other TLAs you write about mean either.
Here I hoped they would have created the most secure harddrive in the world, one who withstand earthquakes, floods, car collisions, and 50+ years of continuous use. And then it turns out that it's just a layer of crypto.
How boring, we can do that in software already....
Sadly, no. The technical background needed to contribute in the debate around global warming/climate change is far beyond the average person (or slashdotter). That debate should be carried out among the scientists working in that field. And they have. And among those scientists, the winning theory is that global warming is real.
This doesn't mean that there doesn't exist scientists with dissenting views around global warming. However, most of those scientists are not working in that field, and should therefore not be considered experts. Then again, some do. But it's very rare. So far, I've only heard of one.
The trouble with "bringing up for debate" a topic that the scientists have already discussed, researched, and agreed upon some form of concensus about, is that it is far too technical for us to have a meaningful debate about it, and we can therefore be fooled by people with other agendas than getting the truth out.
The scientists working on this are mostly interested in the truth. The politicians, multinational corporations, etc..., might sound convincing, but their agenda is different. They aren't necessarily interested in the truth, what they want is more power/money for themselves (read: tobacco-science).
Another factor that's involved is that of our human need for "feeling good". Most people want to feel good about themselves, which explains why we all to some degree are guilty of wishful thinking. We want to believe the earth is healthy, to believe or current economic growth is sustainable, etc... If the facts doesn't fit, we invent new ones, or make up our own stories to explain why we have those beliefs (read: conspiracy-theories, superstition, religious beliefs, intelligent design, etc...).
Sure, when the earth is a 300-degree spinning fireball with flaming hurricanes covering every part of the surface, the science will have withstood all criticisms, and the debate will be over. In the meantime, I would suggest that if you are interested in truth, you go to science. If you are interested in what to do about it, you go to politics. If you let politicians tell you what they want you to believe is true, and ask scientists to do something about it, you are going the wrong route.
Who the fuck needs any of these object-persistence layers anyway?
No, wrong.
Ok, so back in 1810 when you graduated from college, maybe $75 was a lot of money.
Today, $75 buys you either: rent for a week, two books, one night out, or food for almost a week. You get $75 by either saving it up, or simply by working one extra nightshift at your part-time student job.
Any student can afford $75. Of course every student also has better things (beer) to do with their money than to give them to software companies, but sure as hell, they can afford it.
That's because you haven't graduated from kindergarten yet. Once you do, you will see that people around you are learning to spell, as well as use a computer.
Most insulative materials (such as clothing, blankets, mineral wool, etc) work by trapping air. If there's a vacuum, there's no air to trap, so I doubt normal clothing would insulate much.
On the other hand, if there's a vacuum, you don't need that kind of insulation, because you're not loosing heat through conduction anyway. A "space blanket" might help retain radiative heat, though, so please bring your tinfoil hat if you're ever worried about freezing to death in vacuum.
Apart from the fact that no technical details are described about this new technology, and that "gears" makes no sense at all in a rocket, and thus the comparison got tiring even the first time they used it, the authors of the article couldn't even make up their mind about what this invention is intended for. In the heading they talk about rockets for launching satellites, but everywhere else in the article, they talk about "satellite engines" used in orbit, which are apparently some form of improved ion-drive, completely useless for launch vehicles.
This is just silly. To illustrate how silly it is, we could just as well have an article about how a new toaster will use multiple stages to toast, just like rocket engines have multiple stages to orbit. This can potentially lead to up to 40% reduced cost of toasting toast, and potentially, making toast in deep space more of a reality, as well as in other energy-starved places. Then we can include a drawing of a hairdryer to "explain" it, and continue to explain that while commercial applications are a few years off, the new toaster will soon be ready to used for military infrared signalling.
You mean the people behind companies doing consumer surveys don't know basic statistics? This makes no sense. Sure, I will assume that such companies (as any other company) will sell you utter crap compared to what their sales brochure says, but that they deliberately introduce statistical errors for no good reason at all is a bit hard to swallow. Please explain.
Uhm, pair programming doesn't mean that both programmers need to actively modify the same file at the same time. If you have to do that, and you haven't got access to SubEthaEdit, I believe your biggest problem is not that you don't have access to SubEthaEdit, it's that you have failed to modularize, and that you have failed to cooperate.
Now don't get me wrong, I think this is funky, nifty, cool, and all that too! But for actual work (not technology demonstrations), and programming in particular, I believe you will have more success by just agreeing beforehand who does what, and/or manually merging the few conflicts you have.
It's funny. I don't think that back when the telephone was invented, people started talking about "virtual business travel" instead of phone calls. Having picture in addition to sound on a phone (or "instant messaging program") isn't that much of a revolution that it makes sense to call it "virtual travel". It's still a "phone call", or if more than two persons are involved, maybe a "videoconference".
IMHO, "virtual travel" would at the very least involve a full virtual reality immersion, although I still prefer to call that VR, not "virtual travel". Perhaps a robot projecting your holographic image at the other end, and recording data for your full virtual reality immersion at your end would be a better definition of "virtual travel". That way, you could visit and interact with real places, not just imagined ones, which is kind of what "travel" is defined as.