Another 5-star effort from Tim Pratt, this time freshening up the space opera genre and making it both entertaining and thoughtful.
Nov
12
Monthly Archives: November 2017
Nov
11
I tend not to include drug use in my stories, partly because I’m so uncomfortable with my own consciousness being…
I tend not to include drug use in my stories, partly because I’m so uncomfortable with my own consciousness being altered that I don’t even drink coffee. But this is a fascinating look into an aspect of human life I didn’t know much about: synthetic street drugs, how they’re made and identified.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/8/16619142/designer-drugs-k2-spice-synthetic-weed-ucsf-lab-dea
Nov
10
You know what kind of people there aren’t enough stories about?
You know what kind of people there aren’t enough stories about?
Old people. Healthy, vigorous old people, in particular.
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
The Age Wave Is Transforming Longevity—and It’s Just the Beginning http://suhub.co/2mazUig
Nov
09
This is, no doubt, highly exaggerated and a lot more complex than it sounds.
This is, no doubt, highly exaggerated and a lot more complex than it sounds. Growing human nervous tissue inside rats is not the same as growing “mini-brains”.
But are you going to let that stop you using it in a story?
https://www.inverse.com/article/38240-mini-brains-organoids-rats
Nov
08
Technology only helps if the system is structured to provide equitable access to it.
Technology only helps if the system is structured to provide equitable access to it.
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
Can Technology Help Mend America’s Divided Healthcare System? http://suhub.co/2yIsicI
Nov
07
Food for thought if you, like me, have a setting in which alternate computing mechanisms are under development.
Food for thought if you, like me, have a setting in which alternate computing mechanisms are under development.
Originally shared by HACKADAY
As the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20. It may surprise you that the microchip that we all know and love today was far from an obvious idea. Some of the paths that were being explored back then to cram more components into a smaller area seem odd now. But…
http://hackaday.com/2017/11/07/how-the-integrated-circuit-came-to-be/
Nov
02
Oh, the possibilities.
Oh, the possibilities.
Social media that reads your mood and manipulates it – well, we already have that.
Real-time, subliminal polling on everything from media to politics, leading to adjustments to storylines and party lines.
On the upside, child-minding AIs who train kids to deal better with their emotions.
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
Tech Is Becoming Emotionally Intelligent, and It’s Big Business http://suhub.co/2h6mC4I
Nov
02
#throwbackthursday
Originally shared by Irina T.
#throwbackthursday
“Other states had Rosie the Riveters. New Hampshire had Lady Log Rollers.
In September 1938, a devastating hurricane killed more than 600 people in New England and caused property damage equal to $5.5 billion in today’s dollars. It also blew down 2.6 million board feet of timber — enough to frame more than 170,000 homes.
More logs ended up in Concord’s Turkey Pond than anywhere else after the U.S. Forest Service launched a massive salvage effort to harvest the tangled mess of timber and bring it to portable sawmills set up near storage ponds and fields. But by 1942, with men flocking to join the military during World War II, the sawmill at Turkey Pond couldn’t keep up.
Enter “the gals,” as the federal government called them.”
Read the rest of the story ( book review, “They Sawed up a Storm” by Sarah Shea Smith) at
Image source ( unrestricted use)
Women Lumberjacks Carrying Logs at Turkey Pond, New Hampshire, as Part of an Experimental Project to Saw up Seven Million Feet of 1938 Hurricane Lumber
Nov
01
I don’t know if you’ve seen the X-Ray feature in Kindle books.
I don’t know if you’ve seen the X-Ray feature in Kindle books. It can help orient the reader to characters, locations, and other details of your book (extra text comes up when they tap on the name).
They’ve opened it up to KDP authors – it’s only been available to certain publishers up until now.
Nov
01
tl;dr: Pointing out that white supremacists have their historical facts wrong (or their Latin or Greek wrong) isn’t…
tl;dr: Pointing out that white supremacists have their historical facts wrong (or their Latin or Greek wrong) isn’t enough; it’s necessary to challenge their ideology directly, including by the way you comport yourself within your field – despite the risks this carries.
Originally shared by Deborah Teramis Christian
This may be of interest to classisists, medievalists, and scholars dealing with white supremacy appropriation of bits and bobs from those fields. Apparently this is a current flap in the Classical community, of which I am just now becoming aware, but the author makes some interesting points about addressing supremacist ideology in academic fields.
Laura Gibbs – thought this might be up your alley, too.