Timing Error

DIY GENETIC ENGINEERING: REPLICATION BY NUMBERS?

Neat story from the AP, via Neatorama, on homebrew genetic engineering:

Using homemade lab equipment and the wealth of scientific knowledge available online, these hobbyists are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering 

I wonder how a future RIAA/MPAA deals with that. The future is plastics.

YUP: I WRITE NEAR FUTURE FICTION

Never thought I'd live through this:

Dr. John Parmentola, Director of Research and Laboratory Management with the Army's science and technology office, told military bloggers Nov. 3 that the Army is "making science fiction into reality" by creating realistic holographic images, generating virtual humans and diving into quantum computing.

QUBE

I'll have to look into this further: "Quantum Effects in Biological Environments":

"Now, the Pentagon's blue-sky research arm is starting to look at how quantum mechanics might impact biology, as well."

I'll always maintain that computer science is the poor man's biology. Life is where the fun is.

BIGGIE SMALLS

Well, for an antidote to the megalopoli post below, check out the tinyhouse blog:

and littlediggs:

Except when we have guest, my wife and I only use about three rooms in our house (excluding bathrooms). When the heating bill comes in, I keep wondering what all the rest of the house is for. That said, these little houses would make a good addition to a secluded, wooded, acre somewhere.

Imagine having a bunch of these (seven?) with a Dan Simmons farcaster to get between them.

Via Designboom via metafilter.

PAPYRUS WENT THAT WAY

In 25 years, paper will have become an exotic luxury item — the kind of thing that executives keep in antique wooden treasure chests on their desks.

io9 lays out some sweet paper/electronic fusions.

THE FUTURE IS PLASTIC

Or, at least styrofoamey and hobbity.

However you describe it, it will be flexible.

On the other hand, maybe they're just practicing:

HOW'S THE METANARRATIVE THING GOING?

Dark Roasted Blend kicks around some ideas on "reality hacking".

(unrelated pic, also from DRB and pretty damn cool)

LOW IMPACT INVASIONS

"So clean, you'll never now you've been occupied".

My problem with global warming are more political/sociological; as far as the efficiencies that will come from the environing, I say bring it on.

This is pretty neat:

The refineries, which can take in food slop, plastic, paper and styrofoam and output synthetic gas or hydrous ethanol, were developed by McLean, Va.-based defense contractor Defense Life Sciences, Purdue University and the Army's Edgewood Chemical Biological Center in Maryland.

And from the Army.mil:

"And as one might think, the sort of waste stream that goes into TGER is a mixed waste stream: it's paper; it's plastics; it's ammunition papers; it's food-slop garbage. And so getting a really high-quality fuel source out is kind of a problem," Valdes said. "So we decided instead to design a system that would convert the trash into electrical power. 

Now I don't have to fear our future killbot overlords converting us into coppertops: they'll need our crap just to power up.

via Danger Room.

SKINNYDIPPING INTO THE FUTURE

Charles Stross has a fascinating read on some near edge technologies. 

My favorite is the nanopaper: 

The end result is undamaged cellulose fibres suspended in water. When the water is drained away Berglund found that the fibres join together into networks held by hydrogen bonds, forming flat sheets of "nanopaper". Mechanical testing shows it has a tensile strength of 214 megapascals, making it stronger than cast iron (130 MPa) and almost as strong as structural steel (250 MPa). 

I have an unhealthy obsession with pens and paper. I like my paper smooth to the touch and generally about 110lbs. Sexy.

VENDY'S

A frequent theme in my fiction; add a Homer Simpsonish "Vendy's...is there nothing they can't do!!"

WRITERS, START YOUR ENGINES

Hope on the horizon

MIT researchers point to potential economy-boosting technologies

and...

Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green

IS THAT A NUKE IN YOUR POCKET...

Or are you just happy to see me. Nextbigfuture on the Hyperion Nuclear Battery:

It is 1.5 meters or 4 feet 9 inches across.
The Hyperion Power Generation "nuclear battery" is a self contained, automated, liquid metal nuclear reactor. The company has venture capital funding. 

DITTO

io9 rants:

NASA officials are whining that the Russian space program is unsafe.

Plenty more. Look Soviet/Russian spacecraft are absolute crap: unsafe, old technology, crude and flat out ugly. They have absolutely nothing going for them...except that they work (I think the private space industry will take more cues from Yuri's boys than NASA).

NEUROTECH INDUSTRY?

New search term, kiddies:

These firms are trying to adapt groundbreaking research into the basic workings of the brain to new drugs for ailments ranging from insomnia to multiple sclerosis. Some companies are trying to regrow portions of the brain using stem cells. Others have developed implants to insert into a person’s head to control seizures and restore hearing. Cyber kinetics Neurotechnology Systems, a Foxborough, Massachusetts, company, implanted electrodes into the brain of a quadriplegic that allowed him to operate machines with his thoughts...

ACME EVERYTHING

An awesome round up of "ACME" products from the Looney Toon Universe (The Only Universe: Accept No Substitutes tm)

In the future, everything you buy will be sold out of vending machines owned by a guy named Ed.

(via io9)

MY MAN JEEVES

Trim them nails, and you've got the perfect valet:

(OK, I'm reading to much Wodehouse)

NEXT UP: POCKET NUKES?

1. Spike

It’s the smallest guided missile in the world, but Spike (shown above)—which weighs just 5.3 pounds and measures 25 in. long—packs a big punch.

Via IP.

MULTIPLE MOONS: A THOUSAND WORLDS

I could do with more moons around earth. Nothing wrong with the moon we have now; I am just, you know, greedy:

A new model suggests moonlets may have once occupied the two Earth-Moon Lagrangian points, regions in space where the gravitational tug of the Earth and the Moon exactly cancel each other out. Objects trapped in these points are called Trojans and can remain stationary forever if left undisturbed.

Pic credit to a great new site: Daily Galaxy.

SOVIET FUTUROLOGY

Orgasmically sweet post over at Dark Roasted Blend:

UPDATE: Dig through the links for more. Space Cops away!!

It's like just towards the end of the sixties, the human desire to explore just stopped. Pity that; we've got a lot of ground to make up.

DESIGNER MANUFACTURING: EBAY TO ETSY

More and more, we'll just produce ideas: everything else gets outsourced:

Welcome to the age of the instapreneur. With nothing more than a design, amateurs can manufacture jewelry, robots, T-shirts, furniture — anything. No warehouses. No minimum orders. And no money down. The digital economy isn't just digital; the same market forces that allowed midlist musicians to make a living distributing their songs online now give amateur clothiers the chance to sell their wares without having to persuade Barney's buyers to carry them.

I should buy Etsy stock now.

THE FUTURE FIGHT

Jet powered, miniature, A-10 Warthog:

The future of the United States Air force, once their Four Bangers put down the ($$$$) F-22 crack pipe.

Plus, vat grown organs:

The goal of AFIRM? To "use a patient's natural cellular structure to reconstruct new skin, muscles and tendons, and even ears, noses and fingers.

PUTTING THE CUTE BACK IN KILL

At Collateral Damage; your source to cutesy self defense tools. Via Dark Roasted Blend, source of all goodness on teh internets.

ALL PASS

It doesn't get better than this:

A card that let's you pass the anal probing of the Homeland Bureaucracy. As a kid, I remember getting on a Delta flight alone to go visit relatives; I got a free plastic plane and some peanuts. Them days are long gone.

We're splitting in a world of mobile haves and immobile have nots.

LIFE HACKING

Not quiet around the corner, but...

From io9:

In a few years, your weekend hacking project will involve bits of DNA and a PCR machine instead of a soldering iron or glue.

TRENDING ORGANIC

Dark Roasted Blend posts a series of concept buildings that just melt into the landscape.

BRING ON THE COMBAT LASER POINTERS

Popular Mechanics:

In addition to pumping out a blinding 4100 lumens (just about every other commercial flashlight clocks in at well under 100), the Torch is supposed to be able to set fire to paper, melt plastic and even scramble eggs. We gave it a try with toilet paper (unused, thank you), and it only took seconds to bring the first whiffs of smoke.

Also from wicked lasers:

Powerpoint presentations can be fun again.

ARTIFICIAL NERVOUS SYSTEMS: BIOBOTS

Soldiers will control battlesuits using their own nerve impulses, thanks to artificially grown human nervous systems. Cybering lovers could control sex toys over the net and "feel" when they're touched, using the same biotechnology

io9

Look, eventually technology will catch up with the biology it unintentionally mirrors. When that happens, it is fun for all.

(The fusion of military applications makes sense when you consider we're outnumbered.)

STEAMPUNK STAR WARS

Yes, I'm late to the fight; but I love the concept. CGSociety link The Steampunk Deathstar the started me looking: :

BERKEY

Work over at Dalley Illustration gallery:

Looks like every cover from Fred Saberhagen's Berzerker series.

(ignore the pinups link at the top. rot your brain, it will)

THE REAL REASON THEY SHUT DOWN POLAROID

No one 'respects mah national securi-teh' anymore:

All conceivable kinds of data - concerning men, supplies, needs - will flash at bullet speed from film cabinets such as those lately installed by Kodak at the Pentagon.

More at Paleofuture.

We're simply surrendering to the International Digital Camerati.

JUST BADASS

Customizable retro rockets. This is how rockets should look, not the junk we have now. I blame American style physics. /iO9

LIKE FLIES CAUGHT IN AMBER

Abu Dhabi plans to build a 22 billion dollar "carbon neutral" city: "We will monetise all carbon emission reductions... Such innovative financing has never been applied to the scale of an entire city." ...and one day the world. How angelic.

CONTROLLING AUTOREGENERATION

The human body regenerates every seven odd years (with the exception of the nervous tissue). By the time you're twenty-one, you've been through three copies.

Now controlling the process, that's money:

A 65-year-old Finnish man received a new upper jaw that was grown in his abdomen using his own stem cel

Sweet. Via Boing Boing.

Dubai Punk

City-Journal has a great story on Dubai, Abu Dhabi and the broader UAE. The UAE will be the Arab worlds future handshake with a globalizing word. Something like 6% of the UAEs wealth is looted from the ground (Oil); the rest comes from the productive work of its citizens. The UAE is a federation; not quiet a republic, but close enough (division of power).

The always raging Nedj boys will burn out, or be burned out, over time (and at potentially enormous cost). When the macrodecision is reached, the UAE will be leading the Arab world as it merges into the global world. My two cents.

I'm constantly amazed at the crap they're building in the UAE. Back in the nineties, the cyberpunk genre was obsessed with Tokyo and it's environs. Today, authors make half hearted attempts at Shanghai and Honk Kong; but for my money, base future stories in the UAE. It is the coming thing:

The World.ae (Islands)

Burj Dubai

Rotating City

At the end of the day, "Special Economic Zones" need to be the rule, not the exception.

DEUS EX VENDING MACHINE

Vending machines that cell iPods, now vending machines that sell the mary-ju-wana.

Whn I used to work as a security quard, I lived out of vending machines: a microwaved jimmy dean sausage biscuit with the right amount of mustard made my moth water.

So I noodle around alot with the idea that we'll end up stuffing whatever "magic" (new tech) we come up with into vending machines.

LASIK REPLACEMENT SURGERY

Man, I'll take two; hold the fries:

Engineers at the University of Washington are developing techniques to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights. The lenses incorporate circuits made from layers of metal only a few nanometers thick and light-emitting diodes one third of a millimeter across. The possible uses for such technology range from drivers and pilots reading meters while watching out the window, to video games and internet usage.

Best Laptop Idea

Once more from oobject.

Early One Laptop per Child model.

1. This could go places, on the market.
2. An ebook that is well, a book. Pen enabled.
3. Flexible LED screen.
4. Mac OS touch enabled (yeah, I know I am obsessing)

Blimp Goodness

At oobject.

h/t DRB

I'd go green for this:

Popsci:The Green Side of the Moon.

Absent the Singularity

Vernor Vinge.

Good graphs, also. Kicking around using energy consumption instead of linear time as my calendar.

"Evolution...

...is of minor historical importance"

Citizens for Intelligent Design*

This is where I'm heading with my little worldbuilding project. Synthetic biology featured prominently in the story I wrote for Medgadget's Contest.

From today's WAPO:

The cobbling together of life from synthetic DNA, scientists and philosophers agree, will be a watershed event, blurring the line between biological and artificial -- and forcing a rethinking of what it means for a thing to be alive.

It's all going to come down to units and structure

*C.I.D.s are the heavies in my worldbuilding.

A Comparison of Quantum and Cartoon Physics

Likely wrong; but worth a try and good start point for some ideas.

Kindling my interests....

OK. This is my last post on Kindle, which I am not going to buy (right?).

Crossthinking this article from Opinion Journal:The Eagles team up with Wal-Mart.

The first new album from the Eagles in over a decade, "Long Road Out of Eden," has already sold more than a million copies, hitting Billboard's #1 in its first week. It's the kind of blockbuster that used to pay Christmas bonuses at the big record companies, only this album wasn't produced by a big record company. The Eagles released it themselves and are selling it exclusively through Wal-Mart.

So, [Insert your favorite author] EDVOd onto your Kindle? Not bad.

Chocolate in peanut butter

The blending of MILTECH and CIVTECH.

Army Sends World's First Hybrid-Electric Howitzer to War

Unmanned NASA Aircraft Enlisted in Fight Against Southern California Wildfires

Maybe I'll be able to pick up and armored, combat, sport ute after all.

Fast movers...

Man, I hope the euros build this:

Blimps, suborbitals and fast movers. Wave of the future.

Spookytechnology

I like. In some stories, I'll make reference to "Bad physics." I like spookytech better.

Link to Danger Room story.

.PDF File and origin site.

Spooky Computing

The Quantum Pontiff