Al Macintyre: SF

Tue, 14 Jan 2003 19:33:40 GMT

http://www.spacewar.com/ has news about military stuff going into orbit and being prepared for future conflicts involving higher and higher military high tech

spy satellite development
Japan's unmanned spy plane
Advances in unmanned air vehicles such as robot helicopters
Missile Defense System ... Republican controlled US Gov is GO GO GO on this, before Democrats get control again and shoot it down again

Tue, 14 Jan 2003 19:17:52 GMT

http://www.spacedaily.com/ has wide spectrum of news on space and science in general.

Risk of Cosmic Doom
The end for our planet - but man has 500 million years to evacuate
New discoveries in our solar system
Genetic Research advancements
Radiation Defense Discovery
Environmentally Friendly Rocket Fuel
NASA activities
European Space Agency activities
Israeli Astronaut
China urges peace, as India tests new missile
Russia invests in Space Defense
Japan Defense Chief in Moscow to discuss North Korea
North Korea announces tests for their new missiles
North Korea promises thousand fold retribution for seizure of their cargo

Tue, 14 Jan 2003 19:10:34 GMT

http://www.astroexpo.com/about/gateway.asp discovered thanks to Moreover Science News right before my PC lockup lost me all my News Aggregation. This outfit appears to be a virtual exhibit hall of all space industries, with tons of technical references.

Sun, 24 Nov 2002 07:34:22 GMT

Science Fiction Links

Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine
Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine
Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists and Collectors (ASFA)
Austrailian Science Fiction Web Pages
Baen Books Science Fiction directory and ordering pages
Cyberpunk class at University of Texas at Austin
Del Rey Books Science Fiction Links
Discussion Groups for Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans
Locus Magazine Index to Science Fiction Awards
National Fantasy and Science Fiction Fan Federation (N3F)
Neffer Amateur Press Association
Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction: A Supplement
e-Piracy Awareness Campaign
Round Robins of N3F
- A packet of letters goes in a snail mail loop of approx 5 people. It arrives to you. You remove your previous contribution, study what the other people have written, and you insert your thoughts on a page or two, and get the packet on to the next person. You can participate in several loops. This particularly appeals to young fans, who cannot afford major Internet bandwidth.
Science Fiction Book Club
Science Fiction Fandom Resource Page wealth of links such as
- Conventions
- Costuming
- Fan Clubs
- Fan Zines
- Filk Music
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA)
Science Fiction in Holland Library
Science Fiction Poetry Association
Science Fiction Research Bibliography
Science Fiction Research Library
Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI@home) via SFF.NET
Study Guides to Various Science Fiction Works
Terminator vs. Terminator: Nuclear War as a Video Game
Tor Books and Links on Science Fiction and Fantasy

Tue, 19 Nov 2002 07:20:28 GMT

[kuro5hin.org] DISCUSSION TOPIC Electric Souls. It seems reasonable to guess that eventually

People will be able to connect to computers through direct neural connections.
These neural connections will be used to present a detailed virtual reality as good as (or better than) the real thing.
This will become more and more popular over time, becoming the major form of computer interaction. In the following story I explore a potential consequence of this trend. [kuro5hin.org]

Tue, 05 Nov 2002 20:42:54 GMT

I wrote up Alternate Realities in Games to help clarify the topic for my earlier Heaven Dimension story. Alternate Realities in Games should primarily be of interest to fans of Science Fiction Gaming history. About half of it is the big picture of what was out there when I was a player, and about half of it outlines my contributions.

Tue, 05 Nov 2002 19:12:27 GMT

I have started a Heaven Dimension story which may be of interest to Science Fiction fans who are not deeply religious, which explores God's dimension within the context of SF's Alternate Realities genre' of Time Travel.

Sat, 26 Oct 2002 18:04:52 GMT

What I personally fear the most about embedded chips is that

If having this chip makes it easier to find someone who has been kidnapped, then at the same time, having this chip makes it easy for would-be kidnappers to find their victims, chop out the chip from the body, and leave it with a ransom note, so that when the rescuers zoom in on the chip, they find what the kidnappers want them to find. Also kidnappers can browse info about people in a crowd, to match up someone easy to seize with someone who is worth seizing, on the basis of what the embedded chip tells them, when they look up the code number.
Some institutions will begin to require that their employees or customers have this embedded chip as part of their security system.
Potential crooks will think the embedded chip is the only thing they need for access to the facility.
Humans will be assaulted for the purpose of chopping off whatever part of their anatomy is thought to contain the chip, so that the crook can then use a human arm with an embedded chip as the key to try to unlock access to whatever facility they want to break into.
- At one college, it is your thumb that the thieves will want to chop off. http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,53912,00.html http://www.vortex.com/privacy.html
It is bad enough now that crooks want to steal my wallet, or break into my home and steal property from me, or steal my identity, but with this technology, future crooks will want to chop off part of my body.

Wired Articles on Privacy:
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,55999,00.html

The initial version of the VeriChipID is the size of a grain of rice. http://www.adsx.com/prodservpart/verichip.html It needs to be activated by a scanner. It gives a code number, that when looked up in a data base, gives whatever info the wearer has decided will be in that data base. However, much more advanced versions are in the pipeline, such as Digital Angel, which combines Global Positioning (GPS) system and monitoring service, to help keep track of people with certain medical conditions, school children, where the legal system needs to keep track of them, and potential kidnap victims. Sex Offenders are branded for life in some states, but not yet with this chip. Perhaps some Catholic Priests need to have the Mark of the Beast added to their anatomy, so parents can scan child care providers before entrusting their children to their care.

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,50004,00.html

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,55740,00.html

http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54604,00.html

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,53075,00.html

Remember Lojack? http://www.lojack.com/ This is a system used to help the police locate stolen vehicles, that have had Lojack installed in advance. Depending on how large Lojack is, and how obvious it is to thieves who might want to remove it during the theft, before the theft is discovered, some people might want this installed on other products of value ... would it interfere with the operation of a computer for example?

Well what we are talking about here is a similar concept embedded in human bodies.

A similar chip has been embedded into pets so animal shelters can identify the owners. Three different companies market these devices. There is some controversy over whether the technology works as advertised.

http://www.gcn.com/archives/sl/1997/November/desk.htm

Several versions of this product, from several companies, are being marketed in Latin America with an GPS that keeps track of where the person is, who has the chip. This can help locate people who have been kidnapped, before the kidnappers remove the chip from their bodies, and it can also be used by kidnappers to help them find their kidnap victims. Kidnapping is big business in South America, and the US State Dept has a travel warning on Columbia due to this. A politician in Brazil has volunteered to be chipped, to demonstrate how safe it is to the people. The capital of Brazil is also the kidnapping capital of Brazil.

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,52253,00.html

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,50004,00.html

http://travel.state.gov/colombia_warning.html

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,50435,00.html

Wherify makes a bracelet that parents can lock onto children wrists, to allegedly track their physical movement, and their Internet travels, to allegedly keep the children safe, until a kidnapper removes the bracelet. http://www.wherifywireless.com/corp_home.htm If the child strays, does not report in when supposed to, the parents can use the internet to identify the child GPS signal on the map.

http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54604,00.html If the child encounters a situation he or she has been trained to deal with, like a stranger making certain claims, the child can punch a 911 button to send an alert to the police that is GPS linked. The device can also send out a police alarm if someone tries to forceably remove it, so obviously the criminals have a bit of work cut out for them to jam the signal before they do the removal. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,55731,00.html

However, the technology exists such that the parents could have software continuously checking on where the child is in transit, to make a little map of all the places the children have been to, and the speed of transition (implying when in a vehicle in excess of speed limit).

There is a big controversy over what the FDA has to say on the subject, with representatives of Applied Digital Solutions site/ad http://www.adsx.com/ mentioned in the article, claiming that different FDA have been telling them contradictory stories.

I have a hard time believing that the Applied Digital Solutions chip was accurately depicted to FDA personnel who told Applied Digital Solutions that this chip did not need FDA approval, if the company proceeded in a certain way in their advertising claims and statements to the media, because Section 201 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, implants and other devices that "affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals" require government approval. http://www.fda.gov/opacom/laws/fdcact/fdctoc.htm Any foreign object inside human body, for any length of time, has the potential to impact that human's well being, and thus must have FDA approval. Many implants, that have no medical purpose, come under FDA regulation.

However, it is clear from news reports that someone at the FDA did in fact approve the Applied Digital Solutions chip, but not 100%. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,55952,00.html

Perhaps we want to invest in Applied Digital Solutions, as there are sure to be lots of people who will want to buy the product, without taking the risks seriously, but suppose there is law suit thanks to major abuse? Be ready to sell the stock real fast. Applied Digital Solutions is also in the news because of conflicts with their auditors, which puts them at risk of being in violation of their restructured loan with IBM Global Credit.

http://www.wired.com/news/ipo/0,1350,52499,00.html

FDA = http://www.fda.gov/ = Food and Drug Administration

Hearing Aids, Contact Lenses, Tattoos, surely are less intrusive on our bodies than embedded chips, but they are in fact covered by FDA regulations. Something does not compute here.
Anything we eat is covered by FDA regulations, with a large chunk of the food chain from agriculture also covered, and packaging of Halloween candy to give to kids
Any medicine we take is covered by FDA regulations
Vitamin Pills and alternative medicine covered by FDA regulations
Medical tools in the home like thermometer or blood pressure measure or know if pregnant are covered by FDA
Chemicals placed on our bodies, like cosmetics, ointments, anti-mosquito repellant, sun tan, you name it, is covered by FDA
Products that emit radiation, are covered by FDA regulations, such as Cell Phones, Lasers, Microwave Ovens, Personal Computers ... but somehow this embedded chip in our bodies which is connected by radio to GPS to track who we are and where we are, is to be exempted from FDA regulations. I have a hard time believing this story.
Safety of nation's blood supplies, from say West Nile or AIDS, is covered by FDA
On-line medicine and imported treatments covered by FDA
Bioterrorism information from FDA web site

FDA Investigator's Concern about potential health risks to humans from having this chip embedded in their bodies:

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,55626,00.html

The Jacobs family in Florida got a lot of publicity when they got chipped,

http://www.techtv.com/news/culture/story/0,24195,3372523,00.html

then a week later the FDA announced that it was investigating the company, and as a result NASDAQ temporarily put trading of Applied Digital Solutions on hold.

http://www.techtv.com/news/culture/story/0,24195,3384927,00.html

Apparently, during a press briefing of the implications of what had happened with the Jacobs family in Florida, Applied Digital Solutions representatives spoke of the chip being linked to FDA compliant medical data base. The FDA says it is illegal to use the FDA name in such a way that it sounds to be an endorsement of any product.

Any company, that is marketing products that might have government approval implications for some aspects of their products, ought to have its marketing department briefed by appropriate lawyers with respect to what you can say and what you ought not say. It sure sounds like Applied Digital Solutions is not following that safety protocol, which so far has resulted in a whole series of foot in mouth incidents that will probably eventually cost the company millions of dollars in fines, lawsuits, and lost business. I can only conclude that either Applied Digital Solutions management is extremely inexperienced, or deliberately taking serious chances because they think the publicity and scandals will help them much more than any damage.

Additional Links to stories about the Jacobs family.

http://www.techtv.com/news/culture/story/0,24195,3384209,00.html

http://www.techtv.com/news/culture/story/0,24195,3384016,00.html

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,50187,00.html

I have not been following this story in detail, so it is not clear to me what the precise sequence of events are. The news media seems to be implying that of Applied Digital Solutions tried to put something over on the FDA, and the FDA either fell for some of it, or we are already seeing abuses.

Remember Lindows, where that company clicked I agree that everyone has to click to get a product, then in their advertising claimed a relationship that the I agree vendor felt was excessive and sued to have them stop saying that? Well the FDA has a similar gripe, and they are not the only place with gripes.

Allegedly Applied Digital Solutions asked the FDA what they had to do to avoid needing FDA approval, then after FDA told them, they both violated that understanding, and advertised that they had government approval to market the thing. Here is another example of where Applied Digital Solutions actions have triggered a storm of media controversy ... was it deliberate or by mistake?

It sounds to me that if the FDA told them what they had to do to avoid needing FDA approval for the device, and if they complied with those conditions, then they did in fact have government approval from the FDA, and the only problem would be with how they phrased it.

Allegedly Applied Digital Solutions asked various hospitals if they would be willing to provide this chip as a service. 12 hospitals said they interested in exploring what's involved. Allegedly Applied Digital Solutions then claimed the 12 hospitals were now offering the service. http://www.techtv.com/news/culture/story/0,24195,3384209,00.html

This sounds to me to be very sloppy business practice, or outright attempt at fraud, another example of where Applied Digital Solutions actions triggered a storm of media controversy ... was it deliberate or by mistake?

FDA Spokesperson Claim that so long as no medical information is involved in this tracking of human beings, it is not subject to FDA regulation. It is Ok to have it connected to a medical data base, and it is Ok for people to use it to save them in medical emergencies, but so long as the device itself is not gathering medical information about the person it is embedded in, it is not subject to FDA approval.

http://www.newsday.com/ny-fdachip0406.story?coll=ny-homepage-more-breaking-news

The Executive Director of the New York ACLU says that this has enormous potential for benefits at the same time as enormous potential for abuse. I agree with both.

Potential benefit and abuse at the same time

National Identity

Potential benefits

Similar to medical alert bracelet ... you wheeled into hospital unconscious, and this thing tells medical professionals what you would have told them had you been conscious, about your medical allergies for example.
Your child is kidnapped, and assuming the kidnappers don't have one of these scanners to locate and destroy the chip and injure your child in the process, the police use GPS to find your child.
Alzheimer's patients who may get lost.
Some felon is supposed to report to authorities regularly, out on bond, or on parole, but of course this only works for criminals who lack the desire to cut up their own bodies to remove the thing. http://www.ptm.com/
Article listing benefits and claiming no risk to privacy. I do not believe the latter claim. http://www.techtv.com/siliconspin/features/story/0,23008,3375490,00.html The article claims that the data bases will be protected using the full state of art, but I know from past experience and education that the state of art is full of holes. Plus, there are various risks I talk about elsewhere in this post.

Potential abuses

Many concerns stated above, such as the risk to having our arm chopped off if the chip is used for something really critical access, such as security key to get into a facility that terrorists or criminals desire to get into.
You walking, minding your own business. Someone scans you, gets your code #s, looks up the data base, and pretty soon there is in your face advertising, tailored to the contents of your data base.
Suppose you win the lottery. A kidnapper could use the chip to locate your child. Start off by searching the internet for info about you, to determine what kids you have and what the code numbers are of any chips in them, then use portable scanners to look at kids in your neighborhood to see which one has the chip for the parent that just got wealthy.
Go through airport security - it sets off some kind of alarm - special legislation needed to say that people with this are allowed to use the nation's airlines. Ok now the homicide bombers seek to manufacture pieces of weapons that can masquerade as this stuff, then a terrorist team takes turns using the privacy of the airplane toilet to dig the pieces out of themselves to assemble their weapon. The initial version is about the size of a grain of rice and needs to be activated by a scanner. It does not have the GPS feature.
Applied Digital Solutions CEO Richard Sullivan said, in an interview, that this could be used to track foreigners in the USA.
- You show up as a tourist, student, business person, or whatever, and have to have this injected into your body, as a condition of being in the country, then you would be treated as a suspected criminal until you leave. Those of us already here might have to show up to some government office to be injected. This way only the real criminals who smuggle themselves into the country and do not voluntarily go to the government offices would not have them.
- I also expect that some criminals would indulge in identity theft and have injected into themselves one of these gadgets with a forged code number that agrees with the person whose identity they are stealing. I wonder how difficult it would be to change the code number so that on different days the criminal will be masquerading as different people.
- Although the company is now downplaying their CEO's remarks, there has allegedly been an effort in the UN to mandate this for keeping track of refugees and other stateless persons.
Electronic Frontier Foundation Attorney speaks out about Issues and Concerns with the VeriChip in http://www.techtv.com/siliconspin/features/story/0,23008,3375488,00.html
Gary Wohlscheid, President of Last Days Ministries http://www.tldm.org/, is comparing this chip to the Biblical Mark of the Beast. http://www.tldm.org/News4/MarkoftheBeast.htm

Thanks to V. of TYR for bringing these links to Al attention. Discuss this at Tech TV also here and here and here. I may have lost track ... many of the Tech TV articles have at the very bottom, links to other articles that are related, then below that there is an area where people have been commenting on these stories. Some of the Wired articles also have space at the bottom for commenting on them.

Thu, 17 Oct 2002 19:54:07 GMT

Russia successfully launches European science satellite. floridatoday.com Oct 17 2002 10:14AM ET [Moreover - Science news]

Russia's Proton Rocket launched an Astrophysics satellite from Russia for European Space Agency. Several nations science experiments involved.

Mon, 07 Oct 2002 18:01:24 GMT

In addition to Murray Leinster, James White does some excellent science fiction doctor stories, such as his Sector General series. The New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA) and NESFA Press just came out with The White Papers, includimg a directory of the series. If you want to read them from beginning to end, try this sequence: Custom Fitting; Tableau; Accident; Occupation Warrior; Medic; Sector General; Trouble with Emily; Visitor at Large; Out-Patient; Countercharm; Invader; Vertigo; Blood Brother; Meatball; Major Operation; Spacebird; Contagion; Quarantine; Quarantine Recovery; Survivor; Investigation; Combined Operation; Star Surgeon; Star Healer; Code Blue Emergency; Genocidal Healer; The Galactic Gourmet; Final Diagnosis. Looks to me like I have not yet read all of them.

Fri, 04 Oct 2002 07:55:34 GMT

Quoting from Garth's latest fanzine

THE ROYAL SWISS NAVY GAZETTE #8 & 9, September 2002, being an occasional yet

generally belated personal fanzine by Garth Spencer, produced in Vancouver,

B.C., Canada, available either through P.O. Box 15335, VMPO, Vancouver, BC

CANADA V6B 5B1, or via e-mail from the editor/publisher at

garthspencer@shaw.ca, or downloadable from his website at

http://www.vcn.bc.ca/sig/rsn

CONTENTS

ANOTHER OPINIONATED EDITORIAL 1

CONTRIBUTIONS TO A THEORY OF FANDOM (part V) 6

LETTERS FROM MY FRIENDS 7

HOW TO TELL APART DIFFERENT KINDS OF ANGLOS FROM QUITE A LONG WAY AWAY 15

COLLECTED NEWS FROM AND ABOUT FANDOM 17

CANVENTION 2002:WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION 19

THE ROYAL SWISS NAVY NEWS 22

SOMETHING I FOUND WHILE TOSSING OUT OLD PAPER #1: 24

THE SETUP (IN FANDOM) 25

THE SONG OF THE TRUFAN 26

SOMETHING I FOUND WHILE TOSSING OUT OLD PAPER #2: 27

FANZINES RECEIVED (and some reviews) 27

ART CREDITS

Taral Wayne: cover, p. 6

Mats Ohrmann pages 26, 27

Michael Morse other interior art

COAs

The Editorial is pretty good ... I am excerpting parts here ... it runs to several pages of examples

Should we abolish television? In fact, should we outlaw the film industry?

The problem is that the most popular paranoias seem to be conditioned by popular TV or movie images, far more than facts.

Otherwise normal, intelligent people seem to build their version of reality on the images broadcast repeatedly by

popular media, not by reading and research. It is as if movie screens and TV screens were hypnotic mind control instruments.

UNQUOTE

I could say much the same about con games distributed by e-mail.

Fri, 04 Oct 2002 05:17:17 GMT

Remember Murray Leinster? He was the dean of science fiction before Robert Heinlein. His first novel published in 1919, for 50 years he pioneered virtually every sub-genre of SF story telling, such as alternate history and first contact stories. Baen Books have just come out with Med Ship, that claims to be the first complete publication of the Med Ship Saga, in the sub genre of science fiction doctor stories. Well I have read many of the stories in this collection, but the first in the book is not one I familiar with, so it worth getting. The contents are:

Med Ship Man
Plague on Kryder II
The Mutant Weapon
Ribbon in the Sky
Tallien Three
Quarantine World
The Grandfathers' War
Pariah Planet

Baen plans to bring out additional such collections of Leinster's work, the next one will be a collection of his stories of adventures on other planets.

Wed, 02 Oct 2002 21:26:05 GMT

I'd like to take this Technology Wish a bit further,

Radio Tip thanks to a hassle I had posting this, and figuring out how to handle it.

Background: I hope you do not get duplicate posts because I had macro errors until I Prefs / News Aggregator / Where to go after Posting / turned it off ... basically I used the magnifying glass on dws.Radio.FAQ to locate the post I had remembered from earlier, then did my POST from there, but on the way back there is a bug in Radio, that I just discovered today, where it can't find where it came from when we not use standard path posting from New Aggregator, giving us a Macro error. At this point it lost what was on my home PC and only published to my public site, where I copied that to my home PC and tried again.

Solution: Thus the tip, so that others can avoid the same hassle ... if you plan to use the magnifying glass to gather all of one News Aggregation source together, then POST from there, turn off that Preference first until you are done with any POSTs from that particular source or by that route.

[Don W Strickland: RadioFAQ] QUOTE

Radio Wish: [John Robb] Wouldn't it be interesting to have an RSS variant (new name obviously) for subscribing to personal contact data off of weblogs? Name, weblog name, weblog location, physical address (or as much as you want to provide), spam free e-mail account location, IM link to username, location of RSS feed, Bio info, bio pic, resume, etc. To a large extent this would replace my bookmark and e-mail contact list. I truly think that weblogs are starting to become global 24x7 business cards. This would help me collect them.

Answer: [Kunekt] Kunekt Cards make your contact information available as an RSS or RDF (News) feed.

UNQUOTE [Don W Strickland: RadioFAQ]

One Dream: I want to be able to take business cards to a scanner to put the info in a personal contact place on my PC ... for those of us without specialized scanners connected to our PCs, think one of those full service photocopy places & the data going onto a CD Rom, in which I might go to the place with my CD Rom of old business cards and get some more scanned in.

Part of the process might also include providing links to software places that process this contact information various ways, just in case we not already happy with what we have.

Companies might issue to their corporate customers and vendors a CD Rom that has on it a company directory of business card like contacts, their web site map, some company brochures, etc. everything needed when doing contacts with that outfit.

I think business people on the road might like to have a mini-portable business card scanner that would capture the data into a form to later plug into their laptop. My vision is a box perhaps the size of a pack of cigarettes that can store scores of business cards for several days, then you plug it into some port of your PC to download what it has accumulated.

Another Wish: Perhaps the people who do Themes and advice on Navigation Links can guide us into a specialized form for About Us, that has many suggested things we could fill out, but if we leave them blank, they do not eat up space where someone looking at the results.

We might want to have several versions / copies of this. One that anyone visiting our weblog can click on to get what we publically share with anyone. Another to be sent with our configuration when we have need of tech support. Some of the form could be filled out automatically by some software that looks at our PC and our Radio settings, much like the Weather Link now does (Your Radio Application has to be running for this link to serve you).

Yet another future desire: When I am using my telephone, I want to be able to verbalize

Call Jay in Columbus
Call IBM Tech Support
Call Susan in Cincinnati
Call John in Australia
Call Papa John's Pizza

And then the telephone would automatically dial whatever the phone # is that is associated with that person or place that I call regularly. I don't have to look up the number, I don't have to remember a speed dial directory, vastly reduced risk of a wrong number. Whoever can figure out how to make this work has got a potentially very large world wide audience of people who might want that technology. I can see several possibilities for getting there.

PDA type interface to a box attached to home or office telephone where we can key in stuff, then speak into a microphone that this # we just entered is associated with whoever at what company. When the voice input to phone switch is flipped on, stating the word Call in immediate proximity to the phone, triggers the voice input to match the next words with its directory. This would serve people with standalone phones.
Have the kind of wire running from PC to telephone plug that we used to use for modem dial up before high speed internet, but now this wire would be used to get data from PC to the phone's voice input box. We could download updates from John Robb's vision into our phones.
Mobile Phone users when they push some button, that connects them to Wireless Internet Telephone Directory that is their personal voice recognition system like I just described. Then when we use this, the last step in the matching who we want to call in the directory is to actually make the connection.
Growth in this industry will mean dimunition of us getting calls that are wrong numbers, although I will still get calls from people who read tiny print ads in the newspaper classified and misdial and get me instead. Perhaps the newspaper can come with an electronic plug-in for your voice recognition phone system, like a CD Rom except designed to reply to the ads.

Tue, 01 Oct 2002 19:12:11 GMT

NZ scientists to put human genes in cattle. IOL Oct 1 2002 11:27AM ET [Moreover - Science news] QUOTE Wellington - New Zealand gave the go ahead on Tuesday to begin experiments that involve inserting human genes into cattle to produce proteins that could be used to treat medical conditions such as multiple sclerosis. UNQUOTE

Tue, 01 Oct 2002 08:49:01 GMT

[Boing Boing Blog] QUOTE

Turkey City Lexicon. After the talk at UT Austin, I spent Saturday at the Turkey City science fiction writers' workshop at Bruce Sterling's place. Turkey City is a venerable science fiction workshop that has spawned many good writers and a lexicon of science fiction critical terms that is the de facto standard for understanding what works and what doesn't in a work of science fiction:

Squid on the Mantelpiece
Chekhov said that if there are dueling pistols over the mantelpiece in the first act, they should be fired in the third. In other words, a plot element should be deployed in a timely fashion and with proper dramatic emphasis. However, in SF plotting the MacGuffins are often so overwhelming that they cause conventional plot structures to collapse. It's hard to properly dramatize, say, the domestic effects of Dad's bank overdraft when a giant writhing kraken is levelling the city. This mismatch between the conventional dramatic proprieties and SF's extreme, grotesque, or visionary thematics is known as the "squid on the mantelpiece."
Card Tricks in the Dark
Elaborately contrived plot which arrives at (a) the punchline of a private joke no reader will get or (b) the display of some bit of learned trivia relevant only to the author. This stunt may be intensely ingenious, and very gratifying to the author, but it serves no visible fictional purpose. (Attr. Tim Powers)

I had the cold from hell all weekend and I'm jetlagged, but I wanted to get some links up before I hit the sack. Until tomorrow! Link Discuss UNQUOTE [Boing Boing Blog]

Mon, 30 Sep 2002 19:44:43 GMT

I just read one of the latest Anne McCaffrey novels (now in paperback with about 450 pages) The Skies of Pern. This Science Fiction world continues to develop. The above link is to the author's web site - check the links to Rukbat as seen by present day astronomers on Earth.

The early settlers technical know-how was recovered thanks to the AI computer, so that they could put a stop to the traditional menace from the skies, so now people are wondering what will become of the traditional professionals who have protected their planet, and provided essential services. The central theme is a big rock splashing into the ocean setting up monster tidal waves, and what to do about that patterned after our own real world, except the Pernese solution is the marriage of Dragon telepathy and teleportation into a third ability telekinisis. We also have hints of disaffected troublemakers plotting future surprises.

For those of my friends unfamiliar with this SF series, there is a friendly controversy as to whether it should be categorized as Science Fiction or as Fantasy, and I believe it is both. Traditional SF has to explain how the presented science is other than what our current reality understands, and I think Anne does that satisfactorily. The problem for some readers is that they equate Dragons and Psychic Phenomena as Fantasy, and do not read the explanations. Traditional Science Fantasy is to have a fanciful world filled with engaging characters who go on adventures, and we thrill to join them. The Pern series is that also. So it is both SF and Fantasy in my mind, and high caliber both.

The Pern series might be read in sequence (also see her website / books / series / Pern): Dragonflight; Dragonquest; Dragonsong; Dragonsinger; The White Dragon first two chapters only; Dragondrums; The White Dragon remaining chapters; Get off the Unicorn; Moreta's Ride; Dragonsdawn; Chronicles of Pern; Dragons Eye (Red Star Rising); The Girl who heard Dragons; Renegades of Pern; Masterharper of Pern; Runner of Pern (I think I missed this one); All the Weyrs of Pern; Dolphins of Pern; The Skies of Pern; Atlas of Pern; and I have probably missed a few, but anyone who reads more than a few of these will soon fall in love with the series and get them all. There are also several games and SF Fandom activities based on the Pern series, and some information on Anne's site about how to avoid violating her copyright by such activities.

Anne McCaffrey is a prolific author with many series.

I also enjoy the Pegasus series, which explore moving ESP and Psychic Phenomena into Science and Engineering that lead mankind into the exploration of our Universe.
I enjoy the Ship who Sang series, which provide a wonderful technological adventure life for humans whose disabled bodies are an impediment only in our current real life.
Decision at Doona, with a few sequels, is a kind of down to earth grass roots first contact series.
Dinosaur Planet, and sequels, is a great way of showing how Science Fiction reflects the reality of the author and publisher as our reality marches forwards in the development of equality for women in our society. You can see how in her early writings this was truely a Science Fiction concept, but now it is fully accepted.
So if you enjoy Science Fiction, Fantasy, Good Literature, seeing how SF truely reflects our recent reality, are interested in fiction about where genetics and biotechnology might take us, or mental powers that science today does not consider credible, Space Opera, then there is entertainment for you in the writings of Anne McCaffrey.

I still read pretty fast - I purchased this book Sunday night, had a hard time putting it down, then finished it up the next day. I probably spent 6 hours reading it, which is not quite 250 pages an hour like I did when I was younger, more like 75 pages an hour, so I have slowed down in my middle age (I am almost 60 years young), but I suspect I still have considerable mental capacity, and will continue to enjoy great literature for many decades. When I was in Bob Evans last nite on my way home from Borders book store, the waitress asked if it was a good book, and I also told her about my first visit to the Borders in Evansville, saying that it does not have near the size of collection that is in our Barnes and Noble, but the layout is very similar to Books a Million, except they have much more Audio Books and good stuff for Children, although not as rich as Barnes and Noble (whose Evansville store is almost a city block in size).

She did not understand the appeal of Audio Books, so I explained that when I am driving long distances, like to another city, it is a nuisance trying to pick up whatever Radio Stations are a changing, but this is a great way to get the contents of a novel, provided we have a sufficently high quality sound system that we can hear the novel without losing touch with traffic noises. I also sometimes listen to fact books when sitting in traffic jams. I consider that better than reading a newspaper which can sometimes distract me from the fact that the traffic has started to move again.

Wed, 25 Sep 2002 06:25:23 GMT

[Boing Boing Blog] QUOTE Science fiction writers help the CIA. Wil McCarthy reports on his experiences consulting with the CIA on scenario building in his capacity as a science fiction writer in the new Wired. Link Discuss UNQUOTE [Boing Boing Blog]

Tue, 24 Sep 2002 09:18:52 GMT

[spacetoday.net] has links to several stories about various nations planned Mars expeditions

[spacetoday.net] QUOTEs

Energia proposes human Mars mission. Russian aerospace contractor RSC Energia has released plans for its proposed human mission to Mars,...

Japan confident Nozomi will be fixed. Officials with the Japanese space agency ISAS believe that the Mars-bound Nozomi spacecraft will...

UNQUOTEs [spacetoday.net]

Aerospace Daily reports on Russian proposed Human mission to Mars.

Astronomy.com reports that the Japanese Nozomi spacecraft will probably have the damage from the solar storm repaired, now that communications with it has been restored.

Tue, 24 Sep 2002 08:27:52 GMT

Time Travel discussion groups on Yahoo

Tue, 24 Sep 2002 08:24:52 GMT

"Space Travel" urls

Sun, 22 Sep 2002 00:20:01 GMT

[Scripting News] QUOTE BBC: "Californian authorities have decided against prosecuting former astronaut Buzz Aldrin after he punched a documentary maker who claimed his moon missions were faked." UNQUOTE [Scripting News]

Sat, 21 Sep 2002 22:18:30 GMT

Impact of Emerging Technologies is the focus of [MIT Enterprise Technology Review] with this seemingly unbelievable story about an air powered automobile from France, using Isotherm Dynamics, a process that creates power by expanding air at an almost constant tempterature. If I am understanding this correctly:

Household electricity cools and compresses the air into a replaceable tank that goes in the car (it uses four such tanks) to run the 1 foot square engine, because ambient air temperature causes the air to expand ... this process takes 4 hours at home, per electric outlet being used for the purpose, or 3 minutes at a special compressed air station that Motor Development International sells for about $100,000.00 to places like today's Gas Stations. It can take in polluted air, filter it, and expel cleaner air as exhaust.
With fully loaded air tanks, it takes passengers about 120 miles at an average of 30 mph. The car can go from 0 to 50 mph in 7 seconds and seats 5.
An ABC reporter tested the car saying it ran quite well except it was quite noisy. The inventor says this is something they will fix in later models.
Buy this car for between $10k and $14k.

Thanks to V. of TYR for passing this link to Al Mac.

Fri, 20 Sep 2002 22:37:27 GMT

[Boing Boing Blog] QUOTE

Antihydrogen created at CERN. a Boing Boing reader sez: "The CERN lab in Europe has created REAL antimatter (antihydrogen atoms).The controlled production of antihydrogen observed in ATHENA is a great technological and scientific event. Even more so because ATHENA has produced antihydrogen in unexpectedly abundant quantities. Wow. Who wants a ride on the Enterprise?" Link Discuss UNQUOTE [Boing Boing Blog]

How fast can a vehicle go that is powered by Anti-Matter? Does Anti-Matter Fall Up?

Anti Gravity Research.
Here's how fast they can go in game simulations.

Is it safe to mix anti matter and regular matter to produce energy of thrust?
This sounds to me like the engine that propels itself using actual nuclear explosions (you have to have a pretty strong barrier plate to not get smashed up by this).

NASA's plans.
Wild Ideas.
More Questions.

Thu, 19 Sep 2002 21:02:42 GMT

Storm Web is another SF discussion group worth visiting.

Thu, 19 Sep 2002 05:08:39 GMT

[Boing Boing Blog] QUOTE

RIP, Biggle. Science fiction giant Lloyd Biggle, Jr. has died.

Biggle combined an interest in music with his work, which began with the short story "Gypped" in 1956. His notable short works included "Monument" (1961), a Hugo nominee later expanded into a novel, and "The Tunesmith" (1957), recently selected by Orson Scott Card for the anthology Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century, Locus reported.
Biggle's novels, which began with The Angry Espers in 1961, were mostly space operas on social and ecological themes and included the Jan Darzek sequence, beginning with All the Colors of Darkness in 1963, and novels about the Cultural Survey, including The World Menders (1971) and The Still, Small Voice of Trumpets (1968). In recent years Biggle wrote mystery stories and novels. He was founding secretary treasurer of the Science Fiction Writers of America and edited Nebula Award Stories Seven in 1972, Locus reported.

Link Discuss UNQUOTE [Boing Boing Blog]

I loved Monument, All the Colors of Darkness, and The Still Small Voice of Trumpets. Biggle had a way of looking at things that was unique, making for great plot twists. SFWA was founded in 1965. The organization's website is www.sfwa.org

Other SF websites worth noting.

www.scifi.com focuses more on Hollywood and TV than the written SF.
www.sfcrowsnest.com has a great search engine to access other SF sites.
www.sfsite.com covers the world of SF and Fantasy literature.
www.wsfs.org World Science Fiction Society
www.simegen.com/fandom/n3f National SF & Fantasy Fandom Federation (I am a member)
http://radio.weblogs.com/0105852/categories/scienceFiction/

Mon, 16 Sep 2002 22:38:43 GMT

Cthuugle. An HP Lovecraft search-engine! Link Discuss (Thanks, Jamais!)
[Boing Boing Blog]

Wed, 11 Sep 2002 19:04:51 GMT

[Boing Boing Blog] QUOTE

Aldrin punches out lunar conspiracist. Stefan sez:

"Authorities are investigating a complaint that retired astronaut Buzz Aldrin punched a man in the face, because he was asked to swear on a Bible that he had been on the moon."
You the man, Buzz.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Stefan!) UNQUOTE [Boing Boing Blog]

Wed, 11 Sep 2002 19:01:34 GMT

[Boing Boing Blog] QUOTE

Private moonlanding green-lighted. Private moon-landings ahoy! They're planning a three-month exploration of the big ole rock!

TransOrbital of California has become the first private company in the history of spaceflight to gain approval from the US authorities to explore, photograph and land on the moon.
The US State Department and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have granted it permission to send its TrailBlazer spacecraft into lunar orbit.
The launch is set for June 2003 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Link Discuss (Thanks, John!) UNQUOTE [Boing Boing Blog]

Sat, 07 Sep 2002 23:12:13 GMT

In any search engine, check out Crypto Zoology. Weird creatures that different people believe in. I can accept that perhaps one or two of these are real, but not all.

There's mad science that some people believe in but other people consider them crazy in the head for being so enthusiastic about. Pyramid Power, UFOs, X-Files, Time Travel, Illumninati. Often valid science has its start in crazy theories. Today it is widely accepted that the Dinosaurs were wiped out thanks to Giant Meteor Impact upon planet Earth. Creationists argue how many years ago that was, because Carbon Dating makes planet Earth older than Bible says it can be. But the idea that Giant Meteors hit planet Earth and do various chaos, that was mad science for many many years before it became generally accepted theory.

Now here comes the Atlantic with an interview of Rick Cook, a respected defense and aerospace reporter for Jane's Defence Weekly, whose new book, The Hunt for Zero Point: Inside the Classified World of Anti-Gravity technology, documents his ten year search for a mythical technology. This Atlantic connection is worth reading. There's a lot of interesting stuff here, but I will treat it as Science Fiction for a while. I enjoyed Chariots of the Gods, but as fiction, not taking it seriously. Thanks to V of TYR for e-mailing this link to Al.

If this stuff is for real, in which some researchers can really do it on a shoe string, then America had better win the War against Terrorism before the cat is let out of this black bag.

Thu, 05 Sep 2002 21:23:31 GMT

Comment on Al's Radio Doc Sources using Quick Topics. Eventually, Al wants to look into pros & cons of several different commenting systems for Radio, but we have to start some place.

Sun, 01 Sep 2002 17:32:19 GMT

Thanks to V of TYR for e-mailing me these urls.

Holographic imaging scanner sees right through you
There have been several news stories with privacy concerns about an airport scanner in which passengers are rendered like naked.

http://go.hotwired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,54598,00.html/wn_ascii
This technology, developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (http://www.pnl.gov/), has had some enhancements to try to solve the privacy concerns, while still addressing the security topic.
The computer data can now be split so that the naked body is not shown on the screen, instead all the objects the person is carrying under the clothing is put on an image of a manikin. Here is a
[sample image: http://www.pnl.gov/nsd/commercial/scanner/ ]
There are some other future applications of this technology, discussed in the article, such as the clothing industry getting a perfect fit.
There are also implied applications not discussed, such as what pornography enthusiasts might use it for. Think X-Ray glasses worn by dirty minds, that would just look at the bodies, forget the objects. Think hackers into the Airport Security bit stream to look at the portion that is censored on the screen.

Sun, 25 Aug 2002 23:53:01 GMT

V of TYR told me about Crop Circle Communications?

Wed, 21 Aug 2002 06:53:33 GMT

[The Vanguard Science Fiction Report] = another web site I just found

Tue, 20 Aug 2002 10:36:05 GMT

To subscribe to this blog in Radio.

Just click the orange "coffee cup" XML button on the left

[Asia Business Intelligence]

I thought I would repeat this how to for folks who are behind me on the Radio Education learning curve. Al's Radio Weblog reflects the wide spectrum of Al interests, and is at only the early stages of figuring out how to use this technology.

Tue, 20 Aug 2002 08:50:54 GMT

reorganizing my site.

I created category SF (Science Fiction and Science Fact frontiers), tried to set it up like My Friends and Family, except not in Navigation Link yet, copied a couple posts to it, one from last 25 and one from Archives. What got there was geeky for a while, but give it time to catch the updating. It got Ok, I moving a bit more from the Archives, plus I reminded that I am setting them up correctly.

This might lead me to further adjusting my reference story Understand Radio Categories. I do not understand the significance of rendering in whatever. I have a test category with one post from weeks ago that is not rendered, and it continues to be geeky.

Tue, 20 Aug 2002 01:26:07 GMT

[Asia Business News] QUOTE

China Boasts It Will Beat the U.S. to Mars

China expects to put a man on Mars in early this century. Or so it claims, but China hasn't even placed a man in Earth's orbit yet.

As if to convince the general population of its feasibility, the Chinese space program has built a model of a Chinese base on Mars now traveling the country in an exhibition. Let's hope it doesn't look anything like Shanghai's Pearl of the Orient tower!

UNQUOTE [Asia Business News]

China does have a space program, as does Japan, India, Australia, and a bunch of other nations. Some of them have specialized in cheap delivery of satelites into orbit, thus effectively competing with NASA.

Sun, 18 Aug 2002 12:23:12 GMT

Prospective future categories for my Weblog content based on my initial interests. I will need short labels for each so as to save space on directory list columns and width of urls.

Computing
- PC Al = Al home PC adventures & periodic melt downs
- PC = World of Micro Computers (PC and Apple)
- Com Big = Bigger than a Micro (e.g. IBM)
- Com Sec = Security
- Also review random stuff I try out or explore
Documentation and Education
- BPCS = My day job's ERP
- PC Ed = Basics (Browser, e-mail, Norton, Microsoft love hate relationship)
- RU Ed = Al generally figuring out Radio Userland
  - FAQ (dws connection)
e-Organization (careful - Radio url drops dash of e- anything from Story linkage) and Internet Navigation topics
- E all (users) = Accessibility
- E good = Better Writing
- E law
- E link = Deep Linking
- Al 2 do = Personal to do reminders
- E what = Topics Indexing
- E nice = Web Design
- E stuck = Quicksand and miscelaneous other
Friends and Family
Humor
- I will probably populate the Gems, after I figure out how to navigate them
News Junkie that I am
- Book Reviews
- HisTech = History of Technology
- Military History and current trends
- Politics
- World News Today
SF = Science Fiction and Science Fact Frontiers
- SF TT = My Time Travel Simulation Game

Sun, 18 Aug 2002 02:24:44 GMT

Al struggles to learn "Radio url number system".

Thu, 15 Aug 2002 16:44:05 GMT

[Boing Boing Blog] QUOTE: Periodic Table of Science Fiction for your PDA. Scifi.com's Scifiction section has a regular feature by brilliant sf writer Michael Swanwick called the Periodic Table of Science Fiction. For each installment, Swanwick writes a 300-word short-short-story about an element from the Periodic Table. Now, scifi.com is syndicating those stories with AvantGo, so you can get regular updates to read on your Palm or PocketPC device while you're on the road. Link Discuss (Thanks, Ellen!) :UNQUOTE [Boing Boing Blog]

Mon, 12 Aug 2002 20:07:18 GMT

Thanks to Dave Winer [Scripting News] QUOTE Thanks to genehack for the link to The Time Travel Fund. Well worth a read, if not a deposit. Give them $10 now, and in 500 years, they pay to transport you to the future from your deathbed. Think about it. UNQUOTE [Scripting News]

No guarantees.
Time Travel might not be invented.
Once Time Travel is generally known to have been invented, the government will have to regulate how it is used.
The religions of the world will not want non-believers going back to the times of their saviors and miracle workers to contaminate anything.
Evolutionists will not want non-believers going back to rescue the Dinosaurs and undo the evolution of mankind.
The political systems of the world will not want non-believers going back and undoing the invention of Democracy, and other forms of government.
The list of reasons to hire a lawyer to sue the inventor of Time Travel are endless.
The temptation to keep it secret and use the money for other purposes seems overwhelming.

Mon, 12 Aug 2002 08:49:29 GMT

It is too easy for me to get carried away by an infinity of topics that are interesting to me.

I need to periodically review the guide to sane blogging.

"Is this important?"
- In the eyes of the beholder.
"Why Is This Important?"
- I guess when I get fully going on Categories I should have an ABOUT statement.
"Who Cares?"
"What Does It Mean?"
"Is it worth explaining?"