OK, I don't want to be pedantic here, but to my understanding, evolution doesn't proceed from "more primitive" to "less primitive". Change occurs, but it isn't heading any any particular direction, and it has no goals in mind. Older ancestors are just older, not necessarily more "primitive."
Of course, I could just be misunderstanding what I read.
You know, the whole "real science fiction" thing reeks of the the True Scotsman fallacy. Science fiction encompasses a vast range of work, probably the widest spectrum in all of literature.
What you are referring to is traditionally known as "hard" science fiction: SF that tries to refrain from mumbo-jumbo hand-waving when it comes to advanced technology/psychic powers etc., instead relying on only that which is theoretically possible with our current understanding of the universe.
It isn't a value judgement: excellent works lie on both ends of the spectrum. To me, what makes SF valuable and interesting is not what it says about technology or the future, but what it says about us: a fun-house mirror to suss out and give insight to the nature of our humanity.
Well, not to be pedantic, but we aren't really talking about what's likely, we're talking about what's possible.
Theoretically, it seems like the most dense form of energy storage would be a sustained matter/antimatter reaction, which would probably provide enough power for even moderately insane comic book daydreams.
To quote the wiki (yes, all of the superscripts are misformatted... damn/.):
In antimatter-matter collisions resulting in photon emission, the entire rest mass of the particles is converted to kinetic energy. The energy per unit mass (9Ã--1016 J/kg) is about 10 orders of magnitude greater than chemical energy (compared to TNT at 4.2Ã--106 J/kg, and formation of water at 1.56Ã--107 J/kg), about 4 orders of magnitude greater than nuclear energy that can be liberated today using nuclear fission (about 40 MeV per 238U nucleus transmuted to Lead, or 1.5Ã--1013 J/kg), and about 2 orders of magnitude greater than the best possible from fusion (about 6.3Ã--1014 J/kg for the proton-proton chain). The reaction of 1kg of antimatter with 1kg of matter would produce 1.8Ã--1017J (180 petajoules) of energy (by the mass-energy equivalence formula E = mcÂ), or the rough equivalent of 47 megatons of TNT. For comparison, Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated produced an estimated 57 mt and was capable of over 100mt, but utilized hundreds of kg's of fissile material.
Well, when was the last time another nation actually attacked us? Pearl Harbor, right? (Face it, 9/11 was a criminal act, not an act of war by a sovereign nation.)
Pretty much every military conflict we've been involved in since then was either (a) avoidable, or (b) could have been taken care of through a coalition of allied nations. Why do -we- have to be the world's police? That's what the UN is for.
The problem with having such a huge standing army is that we're tempted to use it. The old chestnut about "when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail" would seem to apply here.
To bring this back on topic, I think we should enact legislation that ties NASA's budget to a percentage of military spending. 1/5 sounds about right to me. For the 2009 budget year, NASA has been allocated $9 billion (which sounds like a lot, right?), and the military has been allocated $1,449 billion (or 54% of our total spending).
Using my 1/5 rule, NASA's budget would go from $9b, to $289.8b, more than 32 times larger.
I wonder what they would do with all that money? In the '60s, the Apollo Project put us on the moon for about $90 billion, in today's dollars, and there are few today who would argue that the money wasn't well-spent.
Well, I know it's not very popular, but A Tale in the Desert was essentially built and run by one guy with a microscopic budget. It was really fun, too, and very "different".
Well if my arithmetic is right, this laser would have the same total energy output as a 100-watt laser with a 1-second pulse (or for that matter, a 10-watt laser with a 10-second pulse.)
Clark's an idiot. The distinguishing feature is... that science can be explained. Saying that some tech in the future is going to be so awesome that explaining it to use would be impossible is pure BS, and an excuse for lazy and ignorant authors everywhere.
He wasn't talking about science, he was talking about technology. There's a difference.
The problem is that adequately explaining advanced technology to someone who does not have the cultural background/education/whatever to understand the even the basics of the explanation is, well, really fricking hard.
Imagine taking an iPhone deep into the Amazon, maybe a two hundred years ago. Find a native, and once you get past the language difficulties, go ahead and show him how you can take a photo, play a movie, and talk to someone on the other side of the world. Now explain to him how this isn't magic, and that it's perfectly understandable in simple, rational scientific terms.
Now ask yourself, would he be able to distinguish between what the iPhone can do, and magic? How exactly?
You know, I _liked_ Interface, but I can't honestly say I thought either of those two books (can't remember the title of the other) matched his later works.
I did the hand tool piece first, and then put it away so I wouldn't be overly influenced by it while I was working on the power tool version.
But yes, I'm sure the experience of creating the first one also influenced the result: there's no way to avoid that, IMO. The other thing that made a difference were the natural flaws in the marble: I had to work around them, so the posture of the two pieces is slightly different for that reason as well.
Well, that would be a reasonable assumption to make, since he is the topic under discussion, is it not?
Both: either way you meant it, yes I disagree. I don't believe most of us stop growing, gaining skill and refinement at our chosen craft, until we give up or they stick us in the ground.
Cryptonomicon, on the other hand, was pure genius....unfortunately, a lot of the posters here seem to feel the exact opposite.
I have to think that the reason for it is that Neal seems to have three distinct fanbases: 1. The ones who never got over Neuromancer and only like the books where he's channeling Bill Gibson. 2. The ones who appreciate the convoluted storylines and textured histories of Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle. 3. The Venn-diagram overlap of the two, which appears to be tiny.
I strongly disagree. Compare the characters of "The Big U" with any of his more recent works. While entertaining, his early works were more sketches of characters, or walking, talking cliches than fully-realized, 3-dimensional individuals.
Well, when I was at the $250m Sci-Fi Museum in Seattle, (imo, the only good thing to come out of Microsoft, as the place is derided by the locals as "Paul Allen's Basement") one of the most impressive displays (and the place is huge) was the complete hand-written manuscript for the Baroque Cycle, as well as all of the Montblanc fountain pens and refills it took to complete it.
Yes, hand-written. I saw that huge stack of paper, and all the little pen nubs and such, and my wrists starting aching in sympathy.
It might seem stupid to write in such a time-consuming way, but it seems to work for him. This rung a bell for me: I have a degree in sculpture, and one of the first and most lasting lessons I learned is that your choice of tools shape the final work just as much as your intention does, if not more. The process matters; it effects the end result in subtle, hard-to-identify ways. I did an experiment when I was a student, I carved two marble busts (1/3 life size, I was poor), both of the same model. With one I used only hand tools: chisels, rasps, sandpaper, picks, etc. With the second one, I used only power tools: air hammer, sander, dremel, etc. (yes, that one took about a 5th of the time) I was pretty equally skilled with both kinds of tools, and although I was intending to create the same piece each time, they came out very very different. You can't tell from looking which tools I used to make which bust, but one is far "harder".... more aggressive in the expression, people say it seems arrogant. The other looks wistful, serene, relaxed, playful. Obviously just an anecdote, but it made a big impression on me.
Both from the same model, both from the same initial study I made in plasticene. The process matters.
I'm really happy to hear there's another book on the way.
For the guys who hate anything since Snow Crash, well this will probably not be for you. Neal's obviously grown and changed as a writer, and his newer stuff is unlikely to engage you.
According to something I read somewhere, the idea for Baroque Cyclecame about as an idea for a science fiction novel set in the historical past. A long, luxuriously, wonderfully rich read.
For the rest of us, this is like christmas. The man is a gifted storyteller, no doubt about it. Kudos.
Slashdot Mirror
It isn't really inflammatory unless you're some kind of racist. Just saying.
OK, I don't want to be pedantic here, but to my understanding, evolution doesn't proceed from "more primitive" to "less primitive". Change occurs, but it isn't heading any any particular direction, and it has no goals in mind. Older ancestors are just older, not necessarily more "primitive."
Of course, I could just be misunderstanding what I read.
Stuff like this is why it's a matter of time before AoC goes tits-up.
What? What did I say?
You know, in South Korea, only old people use conglomerations of memes.
You know, the whole "real science fiction" thing reeks of the the True Scotsman fallacy. Science fiction encompasses a vast range of work, probably the widest spectrum in all of literature.
What you are referring to is traditionally known as "hard" science fiction: SF that tries to refrain from mumbo-jumbo hand-waving when it comes to advanced technology/psychic powers etc., instead relying on only that which is theoretically possible with our current understanding of the universe.
It isn't a value judgement: excellent works lie on both ends of the spectrum. To me, what makes SF valuable and interesting is not what it says about technology or the future, but what it says about us: a fun-house mirror to suss out and give insight to the nature of our humanity.
Theoretically, it seems like the most dense form of energy storage would be a sustained matter/antimatter reaction, which would probably provide enough power for even moderately insane comic book daydreams.
To quote the wiki (yes, all of the superscripts are misformatted... damn
In antimatter-matter collisions resulting in photon emission, the entire rest mass of the particles is converted to kinetic energy. The energy per unit mass (9Ã--1016 J/kg) is about 10 orders of magnitude greater than chemical energy (compared to TNT at 4.2Ã--106 J/kg, and formation of water at 1.56Ã--107 J/kg), about 4 orders of magnitude greater than nuclear energy that can be liberated today using nuclear fission (about 40 MeV per 238U nucleus transmuted to Lead, or 1.5Ã--1013 J/kg), and about 2 orders of magnitude greater than the best possible from fusion (about 6.3Ã--1014 J/kg for the proton-proton chain). The reaction of 1kg of antimatter with 1kg of matter would produce 1.8Ã--1017J (180 petajoules) of energy (by the mass-energy equivalence formula E = mcÂ), or the rough equivalent of 47 megatons of TNT. For comparison, Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated produced an estimated 57 mt and was capable of over 100mt, but utilized hundreds of kg's of fissile material.
Well, when was the last time another nation actually attacked us? Pearl Harbor, right? (Face it, 9/11 was a criminal act, not an act of war by a sovereign nation.)
Pretty much every military conflict we've been involved in since then was either (a) avoidable, or (b) could have been taken care of through a coalition of allied nations. Why do -we- have to be the world's police? That's what the UN is for.
The problem with having such a huge standing army is that we're tempted to use it. The old chestnut about "when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail" would seem to apply here.
To bring this back on topic, I think we should enact legislation that ties NASA's budget to a percentage of military spending. 1/5 sounds about right to me. For the 2009 budget year, NASA has been allocated $9 billion (which sounds like a lot, right?), and the military has been allocated $1,449 billion (or 54% of our total spending).
Using my 1/5 rule, NASA's budget would go from $9b, to $289.8b, more than 32 times larger.
I wonder what they would do with all that money? In the '60s, the Apollo Project put us on the moon for about $90 billion, in today's dollars, and there are few today who would argue that the money wasn't well-spent.
Well, I know it's not very popular, but A Tale in the Desert was essentially built and run by one guy with a microscopic budget. It was really fun, too, and very "different".
Granted: Here's the full text of the novel East of the Sun and West of the Moon by John Ringo
Feel silly now, don't you?
For the money? Because she doesn't have anything to prove? Because she doesn't care what you think?
Well if my arithmetic is right, this laser would have the same total energy output as a 100-watt laser with a 1-second pulse (or for that matter, a 10-watt laser with a 10-second pulse.)
So yes, a lot of energy, but not a HUGE amount.
Wow, you made my comment for me, thanks.
If you don't understand the advances over the last ten years that Photoshop has made, you probably aren't the target market for it.
Clark's an idiot. The distinguishing feature is... that science can be explained. Saying that some tech in the future is going to be so awesome that explaining it to use would be impossible is pure BS, and an excuse for lazy and ignorant authors everywhere.
He wasn't talking about science, he was talking about technology. There's a difference.
The problem is that adequately explaining advanced technology to someone who does not have the cultural background/education/whatever to understand the even the basics of the explanation is, well, really fricking hard.
Imagine taking an iPhone deep into the Amazon, maybe a two hundred years ago. Find a native, and once you get past the language difficulties, go ahead and show him how you can take a photo, play a movie, and talk to someone on the other side of the world. Now explain to him how this isn't magic, and that it's perfectly understandable in simple, rational scientific terms.
Now ask yourself, would he be able to distinguish between what the iPhone can do, and magic? How exactly?
You know, I _liked_ Interface, but I can't honestly say I thought either of those two books (can't remember the title of the other) matched his later works.
I did the hand tool piece first, and then put it away so I wouldn't be overly influenced by it while I was working on the power tool version.
But yes, I'm sure the experience of creating the first one also influenced the result: there's no way to avoid that, IMO. The other thing that made a difference were the natural flaws in the marble: I had to work around them, so the posture of the two pieces is slightly different for that reason as well.
Oh, sorry. I guess I need some sort of Venn diagram.
Well, that would be a reasonable assumption to make, since he is the topic under discussion, is it not?
Both: either way you meant it, yes I disagree. I don't believe most of us stop growing, gaining skill and refinement at our chosen craft, until we give up or they stick us in the ground.
Growth is change. Life is change. Growth is life.
You forgot one: Ron Paul Supporter.
Cryptonomicon, on the other hand, was pure genius. ...unfortunately, a lot of the posters here seem to feel the exact opposite.
I have to think that the reason for it is that Neal seems to have three distinct fanbases:
1. The ones who never got over Neuromancer and only like the books where he's channeling Bill Gibson.
2. The ones who appreciate the convoluted storylines and textured histories of Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle.
3. The Venn-diagram overlap of the two, which appears to be tiny.
I'm a #3, but I try not to evangelize.
I strongly disagree. Compare the characters of "The Big U" with any of his more recent works. While entertaining, his early works were more sketches of characters, or walking, talking cliches than fully-realized, 3-dimensional individuals.
Well, when I was at the $250m Sci-Fi Museum in Seattle, (imo, the only good thing to come out of Microsoft, as the place is derided by the locals as "Paul Allen's Basement") one of the most impressive displays (and the place is huge) was the complete hand-written manuscript for the Baroque Cycle, as well as all of the Montblanc fountain pens and refills it took to complete it.
Yes, hand-written. I saw that huge stack of paper, and all the little pen nubs and such, and my wrists starting aching in sympathy.
It might seem stupid to write in such a time-consuming way, but it seems to work for him. This rung a bell for me: I have a degree in sculpture, and one of the first and most lasting lessons I learned is that your choice of tools shape the final work just as much as your intention does, if not more. The process matters; it effects the end result in subtle, hard-to-identify ways. I did an experiment when I was a student, I carved two marble busts (1/3 life size, I was poor), both of the same model. With one I used only hand tools: chisels, rasps, sandpaper, picks, etc. With the second one, I used only power tools: air hammer, sander, dremel, etc. (yes, that one took about a 5th of the time) I was pretty equally skilled with both kinds of tools, and although I was intending to create the same piece each time, they came out very very different. You can't tell from looking which tools I used to make which bust, but one is far "harder".... more aggressive in the expression, people say it seems arrogant. The other looks wistful, serene, relaxed, playful. Obviously just an anecdote, but it made a big impression on me.
Both from the same model, both from the same initial study I made in plasticene. The process matters.
Yes, because everyone knows that similar themes or plot devices make everything that follows redundant.
After reading Shakespeare, isn't everything since then redundant?
We're all standing on the shoulders of giants, buddy. That's no reason to stop creating.
I'm really happy to hear there's another book on the way.
For the guys who hate anything since Snow Crash, well this will probably not be for you. Neal's obviously grown and changed as a writer, and his newer stuff is unlikely to engage you.
According to something I read somewhere, the idea for Baroque Cyclecame about as an idea for a science fiction novel set in the historical past. A long, luxuriously, wonderfully rich read.
For the rest of us, this is like christmas. The man is a gifted storyteller, no doubt about it. Kudos.
...it is the clear winner for every user who runs non-apple or non-ms software on their computer.
:)
I'm sure both of you will be very happy.