Originally shared by Arduino

“Maker hardware such as Arduino boards mean such sci-fi goals are now achievable in weekend hackathons.”

(via +Wired UK)

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/hacking-senses-adding-more

I watched this today. It’s one of Sanderson’s lectures at BYU, where he goes into what he, tongue-in-cheek, calls Sanderson’s Laws of Magic.

They’re really guidelines for telling certain kinds of stories in a way that produces a particular effect, which he’s quite upfront about.

Sanderson’s Laws are:

1: An author’s ability to solve conflict in a satisfying way with [magic] is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said [magic].

(It’s also possible to have “soft” magic, which isn’t used to solve problems but may be used to create them, and which mostly creates a sense of wonder in the setting.)

2: What the [magic] can’t do is more interesting than what it can.

The limitations and flaws of the [magic] create an interesting place to explore, because that’s a place where problems are hard. The space where [magic] can solve problems is less interesting, because that’s a place where problems are easy, and there’s no tension. One way to develop your story, of course, is to show the characters finding clever and interesting ways to make the [magic] solve problems that it initially seemed like it couldn’t solve, because of its limitations and flaws.

The flaws also provide a cost to [magic], which both explains why it isn’t used all the time and also makes using it significant.

3: Go deeper before you go wider.

It’s more interesting if you thoroughly explore the implications of one or two elements and how they impact on everything else than if you superficially explore a whole lot of them (the same could be said of characters).

There’s also Law Zero:

0: Default to what is awesome.

Don’t lose sight of why we put [magic] in our stories in the first place: because it’s cool. You can break the other laws if it’s in the service of something awesome.

In all of the above, you can substitute other terms for “magic” (which is why I put it in square brackets).

What I realized, watching this, was that even though my novel City of Masks doesn’t have any magic in it, it has an element (the social convention of the masks) which behaves exactly like Sandersonian magic. It produces effects according to certain rules, and I set out these rules for the reader and then explore how they both cause, and can (and can’t) be used to solve, problems for the characters.

Because it’s a social convention, it exists only within the characters’ minds; it doesn’t change the laws of physics, as magic usually does. Nevertheless, in story terms, it works the same as magic does in a more conventional fantasy novel – or as technology does in many SF stories, or as real-world forces of various kinds, including social conventions and technology, work in books written in other genres.

It got me wondering how else one could do the same thing.

By the way, if you haven’t read City of Masks and you’d like to, I’m currently doing a giveaway of it for new signups to my mailing list:

https://www.instafreebie.com/free/l9j1q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXAcA_y3l6M&feature=share

Originally shared by SETI Institute

They’re not saying it’s aliens, but signal traced to sunlike star sparks SETI interest

Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., weighed in on HD 164595 in an email to GeekWire:

“This is a bit of a puzzling story, as the Russians found this signal a year ago or so, but just didn’t let others know. That’s not good policy, as what you really want is confirmation at another telescope, but… Is it real? The signal may be real, but I suspect it’s not ET. There are other possibilities for a wide-band signal such as this, and they’re caused by natural sources (or even terrestrial interference).

“I just did a quick calculation of how much wattage they’d need to wield from 94 light-years (I think that’s the distance) in order to produce the apparently received signal, and that would be a big utility bill, even if they were directing the transmission (as opposed to broadcasting equally in all directions). It’s also the case that the known planet around the star is in an awfully tight orbit, which means it’s probably a place that’s hotter than Seattle’s best restaurant. Of course, there could be other planets there …

“So, not too much to say so far. However, we’re looking at this object with the Allen (not Alan) Telescope Array as I speak to you!”

Read more: http://buff.ly/2c300e3

http://www.geekwire.com/2016/signal-seti-interest-hd164595/

Originally shared by Remy Porter

This pretty much addresses why I think migrating away from a capitalist economy is something that we have to get started on years ago. With the coming automation crunch, combined with the way our economy is set up, we’re going to reach a situation where only the owners of capital can actually profit, because they can invest their capital into automation and hope to realize a profit, while labor is useless and superfluous- the best case scenario is that they subsist on a handout in the form of universal basic income, but that’s not really a good solution- it doesn’t address the fact that the owners of capital may continue to accrue wealth while everyone else is sitting around and waiting for the leavings.

We have to reach an understanding that the economy is a tool to achieve wealth for all, not just for an elite. While there is a good case to be made for differential rewards, market solutions do not solve any real problems.

https://shift.newco.co/the-real-reason-this-elephant-chart-is-terrifying-421e34cc4aa6#.90c7q0c84

I’m going to mull this over and see if I’m inspired. There have been some great fairy tale retellings (with Beauty and the Beast, Red Riding Hood, and Cinderella probably the most popular source material).

Bear in mind that these are stories that have been around for a long time and been polished like stones in a stream; Cinderella is known from Europe to China in various versions, and there’s supposedly one story that goes back to the Bronze Age.

Originally shared by ExtremeTech

A new cybernetic device could greatly improve your memory.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/234619-implantable-memory-prosthetic-opens-new-horizons-for-cyborg-future

Originally shared by David Brin

Much buzz about the new planet found to orbit Proxima Centauri, the (small) star closest to Earth and a loosely affiliated member of the Alpha Centauri triple star system that’s featured in Liu Cixin’s “The Three Body Problem.” Though Proxima b’s year only lasts 11.2 days, it appears to be in Proxima’s CUZ or Continuously Habitable Zone because Proxima is small and dim. That nearness also probably has locked planet b with one face always sunward, as our moon always faces Earth. That, plus Proxima’s likely fluctuations as a flare star, means that any life would likely cluster along a “twilight zone” where slanting sunlight and shaded zones allow water to pool and organisms to duck away from sleet storms of ionizing radiation.

http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/27/exclusive-heres-what-life-on-the-newly-discovered-second-earth-would-probably-look-like/#ixzz4Ia6byiWU

Originally shared by David Brin

My friend and fellow futurist Glen Hiemstra – founder of futurist.com – is interviewed by Popular Mechanics on the pitfalls and rewards of trying to peer ahead into tomorrow’s Undiscovered Country.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/news/a22354/how-to-see-the-future/?utm_source=SNSINEWS-new&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=SNS+iNews+Highlights+for+August+17+2016