Arthur C. Clarke summarized the four types of predictions that science fiction authors make in their works in The Hammer of God (1993).
From memory (parity error!), I believe they were:
Straight, predictable predictions (the sun will rise at 6:15am tomorrow morning)
Prophetic predictions that may or may not come true (In the year 2021, civil unrest will bring down the government of the United States)
Influential predictions which inspire people to work to an end (computers will get smaller and more personal, virtual reality will be accessible by everyone)
Some other kind of prediction that I can't remember right now. Either it was in the form of completely wacky predictions, or could easily be classified in one of the other three categories. This, or any category, may be the kind intended to stretch the reader's mind.
(If someone has a copy nearby, or knows this better than I do, please correct this!)
Most of the speculative science fiction that I've been weaned on take the form of the second or third category. The stories themselves don't always seek to say that this is the future, as much as it is a future, vision, or framework to make an interesting character or to draw the reader into a new way of thinking about the world. Authors like Mr. Sterling aren't ashamed to try to have the reader draw conclusions and take actions based on this fiction. Good science fiction is often less an entertainment medium than a way to communicate new ways of thinking, something for which I'm grateful to those authors.
I also appreciate the sentiment that Mr. Sterling brought up about characterizations as well. I hate to say it, but Ben Bova's book on writing science fiction stories helped to convince me to stick with scenarios and computer programming rather than fiction. I write flat characters--my true interests lie in the technologies, the breadth of a society, the intriguing vignettes of daily life or special activity, and the narrative. This makes me a bad fiction author, so I appreciate the seconding of that opinion by Mr. Sterling. (I would write something like Escape from New York and consider it a masterpiece because of the picture it draws. I could never write something like Heavy Weather because I don't have the empathy or interest in my characters...sigh).
Any B5 fans out there will remember the cameras that would follow reporters around the station. Mobile, autonomous, with lights, lenses, and one or two big (quiet) fans for lift.
Also, these were used in Crusade to explore a section of the ship that was too dangerous to send people.
I'm glad to see these things coming around. How long will one of these things go without having to recharge? I can imagine that Sony could do a good job by porting the Aibo to a few of these for recreation.
We've had something like this in Cincinnati for a year or longer. I remember seeing the fax come across the desk of the network manager at the firm at which I was working at the time.
Our service was called something like ViperLink, though I can't find the web pages today. It was strictly line of sight. Your transceiver was placed in a window. If you needed access and couldn't see one of the tall buildings where the base station was set up, a few repeaters had been set up downtown. Additionally, another base station was set up in a nearby business-oriented community (Blue Ash).
If I remember correctly, you got some segment from a class C, with burstable bandwidth. Pricing was very competitive with IDSN and the local ADSL offering (which came out a few months later).
I would use this wireless service for the IP stability it offers if it was available in more areas. It does, however, give a new meaning to "man in the middle" attacks.
Today, I just wish they offered residental ADSL with fixed IPs and no need to log in (or let the router log in) in this area. It's a real drag to have the ADSL log in time out while actively browsing. (Grrr...Cincinnati Bell is so very slowly getting a clue...)
I'm looking forward to reusing analog cellular equipment for an IP network in every city. Wouldn't THAT be great? They've got all those old towers and older equipment as digital rolls out...true roaming IP and just reuse all the equipment that's already been paid for and depreciated.
I love the Java language. It's easy to learn (especially with a C background), in demand for jobs, and efficient for doing business programming.
The downside? The big companies (most especially Sun) are killing off innovation. There's lots of Java component companies around, but not nearly as many as there would have been if Sun didn't keep taking all the really cool ideas and APIs and bundling them with the enterprise APIs.
I know--there are good development projects, exciting development projects with free software that are going on. But I can't help but feel like Sun is really trying to be the Microsoft of the Java industry. I remember all the neat widgets that came out because AWT 1.0 sucked so bad. And I remember how a lot of those seem to have dried up since Swing.
Personally, I foresee Java becoming marginalized into two pockets of development--big pockets, but pockets nonetheless. We'll see Java development in the enterprise, side by side with the VB-heads, and we'll also see Java in the embedded, consumer, and "pocket" markets. Developers in other development areas have been so burned by the actions of Microsoft and Sun in trying to take over Java that there won't be the desire to create the next cool thing in Java. Instead, expect it (like we've been seeing over the past year) in Perl, Python, Tcl, or the like.
Blech. Congrats soulless corporations. I code Java nine hours a day at work, and I don't see a lot of future for it outside the enterprise. Torvalds was right--much as I don't want to admit it.
Slashdot Mirror
From memory (parity error!), I believe they were:
(If someone has a copy nearby, or knows this better than I do, please correct this!)
Most of the speculative science fiction that I've been weaned on take the form of the second or third category. The stories themselves don't always seek to say that this is the future, as much as it is a future, vision, or framework to make an interesting character or to draw the reader into a new way of thinking about the world. Authors like Mr. Sterling aren't ashamed to try to have the reader draw conclusions and take actions based on this fiction. Good science fiction is often less an entertainment medium than a way to communicate new ways of thinking, something for which I'm grateful to those authors.
I also appreciate the sentiment that Mr. Sterling brought up about characterizations as well. I hate to say it, but Ben Bova's book on writing science fiction stories helped to convince me to stick with scenarios and computer programming rather than fiction. I write flat characters--my true interests lie in the technologies, the breadth of a society, the intriguing vignettes of daily life or special activity, and the narrative. This makes me a bad fiction author, so I appreciate the seconding of that opinion by Mr. Sterling. (I would write something like Escape from New York and consider it a masterpiece because of the picture it draws. I could never write something like Heavy Weather because I don't have the empathy or interest in my characters...sigh).
Chris
I checked out the Internet traffic report to see what kind of effect this harmless mistake had. North American traffic statistics
Keen! Can you spot the time the big bad backhoe operator cut the cord?
Any B5 fans out there will remember the cameras that would follow reporters around the station. Mobile, autonomous, with lights, lenses, and one or two big (quiet) fans for lift.
Also, these were used in Crusade to explore a section of the ship that was too dangerous to send people.
I'm glad to see these things coming around. How long will one of these things go without having to recharge? I can imagine that Sony could do a good job by porting the Aibo to a few of these for recreation.
Chris
We've had something like this in Cincinnati for a year or longer. I remember seeing the fax come across the desk of the network manager at the firm at which I was working at the time.
Our service was called something like ViperLink, though I can't find the web pages today. It was strictly line of sight. Your transceiver was placed in a window. If you needed access and couldn't see one of the tall buildings where the base station was set up, a few repeaters had been set up downtown. Additionally, another base station was set up in a nearby business-oriented community (Blue Ash).
If I remember correctly, you got some segment from a class C, with burstable bandwidth. Pricing was very competitive with IDSN and the local ADSL offering (which came out a few months later).
I would use this wireless service for the IP stability it offers if it was available in more areas. It does, however, give a new meaning to "man in the middle" attacks.
Today, I just wish they offered residental ADSL with fixed IPs and no need to log in (or let the router log in) in this area. It's a real drag to have the ADSL log in time out while actively browsing. (Grrr...Cincinnati Bell is so very slowly getting a clue...)
I'm looking forward to reusing analog cellular equipment for an IP network in every city. Wouldn't THAT be great? They've got all those old towers and older equipment as digital rolls out...true roaming IP and just reuse all the equipment that's already been paid for and depreciated.
Chris
I love the Java language. It's easy to learn (especially with a C background), in demand for jobs, and efficient for doing business programming.
The downside? The big companies (most especially Sun) are killing off innovation. There's lots of Java component companies around, but not nearly as many as there would have been if Sun didn't keep taking all the really cool ideas and APIs and bundling them with the enterprise APIs.
I know--there are good development projects, exciting development projects with free software that are going on. But I can't help but feel like Sun is really trying to be the Microsoft of the Java industry. I remember all the neat widgets that came out because AWT 1.0 sucked so bad. And I remember how a lot of those seem to have dried up since Swing.
Personally, I foresee Java becoming marginalized into two pockets of development--big pockets, but pockets nonetheless. We'll see Java development in the enterprise, side by side with the VB-heads, and we'll also see Java in the embedded, consumer, and "pocket" markets. Developers in other development areas have been so burned by the actions of Microsoft and Sun in trying to take over Java that there won't be the desire to create the next cool thing in Java. Instead, expect it (like we've been seeing over the past year) in Perl, Python, Tcl, or the like.
Blech. Congrats soulless corporations. I code Java nine hours a day at work, and I don't see a lot of future for it outside the enterprise. Torvalds was right--much as I don't want to admit it.
Chris