What Adam and Eve Wrote
I’m not generally in favor or Bible literalism, as frequently (I think) that is not how the text is meant to be read, and especially so in the case of the book of Genesis.
People (Isaac Newton among them) have estimated the age of the earth by adding up the ages of people mentioned in scripture and come with a figure of roughly 6500 years. There are numerous reasons that this procedure of adding up ages might be invalid, for example the Hebrews were inclined to telescope generations (e.g. the Bible says that Jesus “is the son of David” when clearly he is the ancestor of David).
Even allowing for that, it seems unlikely that we could arrive at 200,000 years, the age of the earliest modern human.
One might postulate that the first human soul or spirit might have entered the universe around 6500 years ago, but this feels a bit too speculative an explanation to take seriously. Whether or not it is correct, I made an interesting connection recently that kind of supports it.
It appears the earliest known writing dates to 5500 years ago. This is about a thousand years from the supposed time of Adam and Even in the garden, but it seems unlikely that we would find the first actual piece of writing. Maybe the first writing was 1000 or so years earlier. Could it be that the Biblical record actually points to the dawn of human literacy?
It isn’t clear why gaining a soul should result in the ability to write. Maybe it doesn’t. But maybe there was some key evolutionary step in humankind, something that made the modern human the creature we recognize today, something that only happened at roughly the time pointed to by the book of Genesis.
An Alternate Copyright Law
What if the copyright laws didn’t forbid copying images, bits of text, etc. but encouraged it? Sometimes you want an image on your blog, and so you go to images.google.com and find something, then just copy it. Yes, horrible, illegal but the alternative is to go through a complex (and probably expensive) process of purchasing the right to an image etc.
Perhaps you feel a little bad about it. After all, the person who made the image deserves something for their work. Perhaps a site link and credit can be enough?
I’m not sure this would work for music, or stories, but for images on websites or presentations it might make obeying the law a little less unpleasant, and therefore likely to be obeyed. What’s nice is that the artist would get something.
A World Where it Rains Liquid Methane
Possibly the most exciting space missions ever to have flow was the Huygens probe that landed on Saturn’s moon Titan. On Titan it is so cold that liquid methane takes the place of water, flowing in rivers and raining from the sky. The surface is startlingly earth-like, despite the fact that the “rocks” are water ice.
The landing took place in January 14th of 2005 in the region of Xanadu.
Do you believe in Cold Fusion? NASA does.
Check this out: http://technologygateway.nasa.gov/media/CC/lenr/lenr.html. LENR stands for “Low Energy Nuclear Reactions.” It is, I believe, the same reaction that Fleishman-Pons called “Cold Fusion.”
Has nasa.gov been hacked? Have they gone crazy? Or is it true? I spotted this on http://nextbigfuture.com/.Sword and Illusion
A few years ago my wife and I completed a book titled, “Sword and Illusion” about a warrior woman, accustomed to fighting dragons and leading armies. As she approaches middle age, she faces the most terrifying challenge of her life: finding a husband. Many men come to the competition to win her hand, and few of them are what they seem, least of all the Prince of Tellan whose magic comes from dreams themselves.
We’ve just signed with Astraea E-Press, and I will give you all updates when release day comes.
What’s Creepier than Bugs?
How about cyborg bugs? Building a from-scratch robot that can do everything a bug can do is difficult. So instead, scientists are looking at a fuel cell powered by a bug’s own biochemistry. The energy can be used for sensing, recording, or control by stimulation of neurons.
Holiday Traditions of the Internet Age
I’ve got Norad Santa up and am tracking Santa’s progress across the globe. As far as holiday traditions go, this one is particularly interesting to me as a writer.
Whenever a writer tries to create a fictional culture, (s)he tries to make things believable by envisioning all the consequences to society. One of the ways to gain a real feel is by inventing holidays or traditions that relate to peculiar conditions of your world. If you have two moons, you would have a conjunction day, which might be a celebration of love.
Many science fiction writers of yesteryear envisioned the internet. Did any of them think of this? Future generations will wonder what the holidays were like without it.
Excerpt: The Turquoise Bones
Here is an excerpt from my current work in progress, “The Turquoise Bones.”
“In preparation, we give Cor Hydrae a taste of her enemy’s blood.”
Turquoise lost her balance for just a second as the bronze sword flashed through her belly skin, making a shallow cut. Before she righted herself, she noticed the pulsar had slithered into the ring. It was tiny by comparison to Sagittarius, but its black body stretched past many poles. This creature was bigger than the one she’d fought before.
Now that her blood was falling, it became eager, slithering forward with all its might. Yet for all that it moved clumsily, as if it were wounded or–no, it couldn’t be. Cor Hydrae was pregnant.
If she killed this beast, its children would eat their way out and attack within seconds. A dozen or more of the animals, small, fast serpents would emerge, eager to destroy every living thing in range of their teeth–including each other. Only the strongest few in any given pulsar litter would survive.
Tycho jabbed her again, and she stumbled. Blood ran down her leg and dripped to the rock platform, making it slick beneath her feet. Perhaps it was not their intent to let her fight again, to have a chance to kill the pregnant Cor Hydrae.
Another pulsar shirt stepped onto the platform with a thistlevine rope. He roughly grabbed Turquoise and threaded the rope across her back and beneath her arms, making a wide loop. She watched as he tied a knot with quick practiced movements. When he was finished, he knelt and adjusted the rope that hobbled her legs, then stood and roughly shoved her backwards from the edge.
Turquoise had resolved to be brave, to show no fear and to avoid crying out. Yet in that moment, when the small rock platform that separated her from the animal was taken away, her resolve slipped. Her arms tightened to her sides, clinging to the rope. Her mouth opened to scream, but she caught sight of Sol, and the sound died in her throat.
Sol watched her, silent, angry, the hunter waiting for his moment. Suddenly she knew he had a plan. It was the inspiration she needed, and after she fell the short distance the rope allowed, she looked up and bared her clenched teeth. It was the fiercest expression she could think of, and Tycho watched her quietly.
By Your Command
Just a few weeks back I was in Seattle for Supercomputing 11 and I got to see the Battlestar Galactica display at the EMP museum. There were a lot of cool things there, Saul’s eye patch, an electronically administered ethics test (would you make the same choices as the BG gang?). To fond memories of a great show (if we don’t think too hard about the last few seasons). So say we all.
My viper, just prior to launch
Tricia Helfer's actual dress. Why do I feel a strange desire to betray humanity to a race of killer robots?
A toast to the toasters.
Viper flying past guitars.
X-COM: Terror From The Deep
The attached video is about a game I used to play back in 1995. Does anyone out there remember it? It was called X-COM: Terror From the Deep. X-COM: TFTD. I used embedded SWF to create the movie, so you may have to right-click for controls like stop/pause. Hope you enjoy.