Regularly Expressing

Month: November 2007

  • Book Review: On Basilisk Station

    This is the first book in David Weber’s Honor Harrington series. It is a classic military SF novel in which an untested female captain is given an impossible assignment designed to make her fail. She has a crippled ship, political enemies, and sits in the center of a vast conspiracy.

    Neither aliens nor technology are the focus here, strategy and courage are the main components of this conflict. There is no sex in this novel, and even swearing and violence are fairly infrequent. Hey! Some of us care about that sort of thing!

    Anyhow, I highly recommend it and plan to give one or more copies to family for Christmas this year.

  • Exercise Glasses

    Eye exercises have been around for a while. You will have no trouble finding high priced books, videos, “systems” or whatnot to help you set up a regimen. But this is not to say that it is hokum. I have heard of eye exercises of various kinds being recommended by doctors, and I believe that I have benefited by my own exercises, which consist mostly of practicing focusing on objects at different lengths (although I have not followed any official program). A significant problem with eye exercises is the same as the problem with any exercise: finding the time and the discipline to actually do it.

    Can gadgets come to the rescue? Various forms of eye glass monitors are available now. Imagine a system based of eye glasses that could change the distance your eyes needed to focus to see the screen regularly through the day. It could change every fifteen minutes, every hour, or whatever. Your eyes would get the needed practice without any conscious effort. I see a bright future in this.

  • A Cure for Obesity

    I’ve stated previously that I think obesity will be cured by 2040. I imagine all the thin people of the future planted spud-like in their couches gawking at images of fat people from yesteryear.

    Well, the future may nearly be here. The recent discovery of the MIC-1 protein, the molecule responsible for suppressing appetite and causing extreme weight loss in late stage cancer, may be the discovery that brings this about. I haven’t seen anything written about what side effects this might have, or how hard it will be to produce MIC-1 at a commercial scale however, so its not a sure thing.

    Of course, that will not solve physical fitness problem. But I think that can readily be done by combining World of Warcraft and the Virtusphere. If that catches on, it will be impossible to stop some people from exercising.

  • Category Six!

    The idea of putting solar power stations in space and beaming the energy to earth in the form of microwaves is not a new one. However, the notion of steering hurricanes with microwaves is relatively new. Heating the clouds at the right place and the right time, theoretically, could alter the trajectory or strength of the storm.

    Of course, this thing could be a weapon. Imagine a story set in the future where some terrorist gets control of the microwave satellite and uses it to pump up a satellite and aim it at Florida.

    One of the other effects of putting microwaves to sea water, however, is that it potentially can cause it to burn. I don’t know if this would be too helpful for steering or building the strength of the storm, but it would be a cool special effect to add to the mix and build tension as the storm comes in closer.

    The story could have two threads, one which followed a miraculous survival of several people on earth, the other could follow the efforts of the government to stop the terrorists without losing the solar station. In the end, a code is used to release a biological experiment being conducted on the station. It kills the terrorist and her group, giving the ending a little reminiscent of “War of the Worlds.”

    I’m almost tempted to cast Elizabeth Hurley as one of the terrorists so that she can reprise her role as the Devil and create “Hell on Earth.”