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Category: thursday thirteen

  • Thursday 13: Things I learned from reading Sci-Fi

    1. McNugget’s will some day be all-natural health food, relatively speaking (Caves of Steel, Asimov). Apparently our diet will consist largely of yeast grown in vats.
    2. My cockroach problems really aren’t so bad (Starship Troopers, Heinlein). Mr. Rico has to face giant bugs carrying death rays. Don’t watch the movie, by the way, it does not do the story justice.
    3. Don’t trust your computer (2001, Clarke). One of the early stories about a computer that goes nuts and kills everyone. If you use Windows, you know what I’m talking about.
    4. Don’t drink while sitting on an 8th floor window ledge (Inferno, Niven & Pournelle). The protagonist did this and woke up in Dante’s version of Hell.
    5. You can’t get away from bugs by moving to the desert (Dune, Herbert). Giant sandworms are everywhere. Fortunately, you can ride them.
    6. Asteroids and burritos are a bad combination (The Dragon’s Nine Sons, Roberson). This really cool alternate future history has the Mexic Dominion (a cult nation that worships Mexico’s ancient bloodthirsty gods) on a secret asteroid base.
    7. It’s a bad idea to make Libertarians angry (Freehold, Williamson). This piece of Libertarian science fiction is sort of a Klingon’s version of utopia — justice served by dueling, armed citizens, and a highly efficient military.
    8. It’s a bad idea to set your alarm clock for too early a time (Coyote, Steele). One character wakes up early from cryosleep and has to spend the rest of his life alone on a starship.
    9. Never take your wedding ring off (Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Donaldson). In this story about a modern day leper, we find that a white gold wedding ring has enough power to stop all the forces of evil.
    10. Cats are telepathic (On Basilisk Station, Weber). Specifically, the book is referring to a race of six limbed tree cats. But you know the regular ones are telepathic also.
    11. Puns are magic (A Spell for Chameleon, Anthony). I probably read 10 books from this pun-based fantasy series.
    12. Those secret Vatican organizations? They’re here to help (Carpe Demon, Kenner). These books are about what Buffy the Vampire Slayer would be like if she grew up, had kids, and lived in the burbs. The heroine works with a secret demon-fighting organization in the Vatican called Forza Scura.
    13. Make sure you have good health insurance (War of the Worlds, Wells). The big powerful aliens with their war machines all died from the common cold. Apparently, they didn’t even have an HMO.

  • Thursday Thirteen: Wonders from the Past

    My previous Thursday 13 was a list of technology predictions. I thought I’d follow up by a collection of 13 fairly unrelated ancient things that I found interesting/amusing. I give you my list of “wonders from the past”…..

    1. Lost DaVinci mural discovered – Found by Maurizio Seracini of Calit2.
    2. 3500 year old female pharoh named Hatshepsut identified (some other cool mummies found recently include a high priest of Amun in the city of Luxor)
    3. The final location of the Holy Grail (or “holy funnel” as this research describes it) has been identified. This hasn’t actually been confirmed yet, but it is interesting.
    4. Soft tissue from a T-Rex was discovered inside a bone. This , makes good soup, as Chinese villagers have discovered. If that sounds tasty, you can dig up your own in Wyoming.
    5. The Pool of Siloam (from the Bible) discovered (year 2005). There was a time when the shmexperts told us this didn’t exist.
    6. A 20 foot tall fungus existed in the Devonian period. Imagine it growing in your back yard!
    7. A building found inside a Chinese emperor’s tomb. There was also an army of terracotta warriors and other cool things.
    8. Music encoded in the walls of a Scottish Church. This one is a bit questionable, but fascinating nevertheless.
    9. Writings of Isaac Newton discovered that predict the world will end in 2060. Given my tech predictions, I’m inclined to agree with him.
    10. Veil of Veronica found (after being missing for 400 years). This is like the Shroud of Turin, in most respects. An ancient image of Christ.
    11. Sunken treasure off the coast of Florida hidden for for 384 years by 18 feet of water! – Don’t you wish you’d found it?
    12. Nostalgia — Flexible plastic recods in cereal boxes. Totally retro!
    13. 44 year old blogger discovered still alive in living room. This was somewhat more amazing than the catching of a coelacanth. The explorer credited with discovering the ancient blogger said, “Who’d have thought anything this old could still be alive? And yet there he was saying, ‘Can you bring me the chips?’”

  • Thursday Thirteen: Tech predictions for 2040 AD

    We are heading for a brave new tech world. Most of these predictions are things that could probably happen in ten years, but I’m giving them a little extra room to be on the safe side. Some of these predictions are rather scary when taken in combination — some are even scary by themselves.

    It is important to remember, when thinking about future technologies, that almost every area of technology is currently on an expontential growth curve. Things are accelerating.

    1. Passwords are Obsolete: Improvements in face recognition and other biometrics will make them unnecessary.
    2. Displays Everywhere: Flexible, transparent displays could cover many surfaces: clothes, tables, or even cover the walls of your house.
    3. The End of Paper: I know, you’ve heard this one many times before and are skeptical, but once you can make displays that are as easy to read and convenient to carry as a book, books will go.
    4. Cyborg Animals: This is like a page from “Lord of the Rings,” Saruman uses birds to spy for him.
    5. A Cure for Obesity: A host of medical problems will be solved by 2040, and obesity is one that we’ve already made significant scientific progress toward curing.
    6. Self-driving cars: I’m not talking about the use of special tracks in the road, but cars that drive with humans on the same roads.
    7. A cure for cancer, one current avenu for progress in this area gold coated nano-particles. However, there are many such promising advances.
    8. Creating new organs on demand: Imagine you can just print organs! But there are a number of technologies that could give us new supplies for organs. Some think that pig stem cells will be used to grow them for us.
    9. Brain Interfaces (without surger), also this. But most importantly, a paralysed man can walk through a 3D virtual world just by thinking about it — and we can do this now. This may also mean we someday have infallible lie detectors.
    10. Computers will be 1,000,000 times faster and have 1,000,000 times more storage: This just assumes computers keep doubling in speed every 18 months (Microsoft Word, however, will continue to feel slow and consume your entire hard drive). Soon we will be able to record our whole lives, carrying a camera wherever we go. I believe this is probably my safest prediction.
    11. The space elevator gets off the ground: LiftPort answers objections. Actually, some other cheap method of transport to orbit might make this obsolete.
    12. Death Rays: The old mainstay of science fiction will finally come to pass. It is close to happening already.
    13. Terraforming of Mars — OK, I don’t really think this one will happen. But maybe we’ll get started. It’s more of a stretch goal, something to hope for. In the meantime, however, you can always get a job on the moon.

  • Thursday Thirteen: Forgotten Superheroes

    My adopted son is black, and is five years old. He is currently interested in superheroes. Recently he picked up a book in the bookstore with a picture of Superman, Batman, and Spiderman on the cover. He said, “They’re all white. I wish I was white.” (he actually says “lello” when he refers to white people).

    We quickly ran to the comics store and searched for a black superhero. We found a Black Panther comic, and things were better. But there wasn’t a lot of choice. In fact, at the store we were at I couldn’t really find anything.

    Now to be fair to the comics industry, there have been many black superheroes — just none that have made it to the status of Superman, Batman, and Spiderman. The “Museum of Black Superheroes” has quite a listing. Here are some fun ones (I’m avoiding the ones you may already know here, such as Green Lantern, Storm, Blade, Frozone, and Black Panther).

    Anyone out there have any ideas for a cool black superhero?

    1. Black Lightning — DC’s first black superhero. He had an “electro-shield” that could repel bullets.
    2. Coldcast — He’s kind of cool because he starts out evil and then turns good. He has the power to manipulate energy.
    3. Gravedigger — No superpowers that I can see, just a really strong will. He has a really cool name though.
    4. Adept — A Chrstian woman with supernatural powers of analysis.
    5. Bishop – and X-man and a tough guy
    6. Arana – A black girl who is a “chosen one.” We can always use more of those!
    7. Black Goliath – I like this character because his super strength came about because of his knowledge of biochemistry. He is intelligent, he didn’t just happen to get bitten by a radioactive spider.
    8. Misty Knight – A female cop with a bionic arm.
    9. Onyx – A female hero and an ally of Batman
    10. Sasquatch – A female superhero who can turn into a bigfoot. Since I have size 14 shoes, I can’t help but like her.
    11. Postman – He has the power to make you forget selected events. I like the idea of the more subtle superpowers – things that don’t necessarily involve strength and invulnerability.
    12. Blob – A man who’s powers come from the fact that he’s really big and fat. If only fat really were a superpower, the US would have one heckuva Justice League!
    13. Steel – A man with liquid steel skin. A big tough guy that carries a hammer.

  • Thursday Thirteen: The Amazing Cathouse

    My sister and brother-in-law have two indoor cats who love a chance to escape and get outside. To give them a taste of this freedom, my brother-in-law built an elaborate system of tunnels and rooms from chicken wire outside their dwelling. I bring you thirteen pictures of this stunning creation:


    out the door…
    toward the backyard
    farther

    around the corner…
    along the back…
    branching point,
    right goes behind the bush

    over the wall
    and round the tree
    up the hill…
    close to the sun room

    sun room close up
    another angle

    yet another view
    looking back from the sun room