An intriguing approach from Hugh Howey: take an idea (he’s mainly talking about SFinal ideas) and tell the story about how it’s broken. Not necessarily how it breaks, even, but how it’s already broken and it’s up to your character to deal with that.
Now, Howey writes dystopias, which is why I don’t read his stuff, and his approach is not the only way to generate a story from an idea. But it’s interesting.
This is an area of science that fascinates me, which I’ve used in several stories. The first, “Taking Pro,” is in the Futuristica 2 anthology, due out in November.
I have another that I’m working on, though, which has come to a stop because I’m conflicted over my own conclusions, in some of the ways that the article points out as issues for the technology. If I can portray that conflict effectively in the story, it’ll be a very powerful one.
Via Deb Chachra’s newsletter, a positive response to Brexit and similar disruptions that goes to the heart of the issue.
https://medium.com/essays-and-non-fiction/time-to-build-an-extremely-short-manifesto-d53af6a35b6f
Does whatever spider silk can.
Originally shared by Laston Kirkland
Spider silk. No spiders, modified yeast. Already making it by the kilo, planning to make it by the ton next year.
Even if some of the actual proposed policies are questionable, at least lawmakers are thinking about the issues.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/22/technology/europe-robots-taxes-jobs/index.html
On Charles Stross’s site, but not by him (in case, like me, you sometimes find him a bit… off), this is an inspiring post on the many potential ways that virtual reality could change the world for the better.
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/06/why-should-you-care-about-virt.html
Your challenge: write the opposite of one of these, or show one of them turning out as badly as it actually would.
http://mythcreants.com/blog/five-bad-ideas-science-fiction-teaches-us-to-love/
http://mythcreants.com/blog/five-bad-ideas-science-fiction-teaches-us-to-love/
Love the title’s reference to the Niven/Barnes Dream Park novels, which inspired me to put something similar into my novella Gu: immersive experiences, using the programmable matter of the title, hosted in abandoned cinemaplexes.
(Gu is half price in the July coupon sale at http://smashwords.com, incidentally.)
Originally shared by Kevin Kelly
Superb in-depth article on the coming arcade versions of VR and MR by Adi Robertson.
Originally shared by Laston Kirkland
seems a worthy project
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/622508883/open-building-institute-eco-building-toolkit
So, what would change if we took an evidence-based approach to crime and treated crime (and violence) as public health issues?
(An evidence-based approach to education would also be nice.)
Another question, though: how do you keep politics from interfering with the implementation of actually effective approaches? Evidence is not exactly enjoying a heyday at the moment as a way of deciding what gets implemented politically.